New times, new readers?

Abstract

What is the fate of reading in an electronic age? What is the fate of books? Nowadays, we find these two (or similar) questions everywhere and every time someone related to writing, reading, literary education or publishing industry (writers, critics, scholars, editors, teachers) reflects on the future of books, reading and Literature. It seems to be a great problem, maybe because of the fact that reading habits are changing under the unquestionable influence of television and new technologies. If TV is still probably the most used medium by children, the use of the Internet is increasing all over the world. Besides, we do not have to forget the powerful influence of videogames. Our purpose is to show how new ways of reading (practiced by what we can call “new readers”) are changing the traditional concept of reading. We conclude our article by arguing that the new reading trends are challenging scholars, teachers and governments to deal with the problem of taking care of the literary education and with the necessity of creating a new reader: a good and literary one.