Are We Reading More in the Digital Era?

My reading habit began by reading whatever was available—scraps of the national daily, the Gideons International New Testament, short stories. It was the generosity of a brokenhearted drunkard that gave me my first chance to build a book collection. After his fiancée left him for ‘greener pastures’ in London, he didn’t know what to do with the books on his shelf.

Eye-catching covers were the real allure for my adolescent eyes. The more visually appealing the book cover, the greater the attraction to it. And unlike now, we had many community libraries to pass the time during the weekends until it was time to play football. The US Embassy at its old location in Osu had a public library of sorts. Then, there was the Goethe Institut where you could take books home from their public shelf; in fact, this tradition remains so to date.

It was paperbacks for me until the glass screens came. I didn’t read much on my first smartphone, which was half the size of a 6.8-inch display. Then I chanced on Project Gutenberg. This was my beginning of tap, scroll, and repeat.

It was a delight to have a conversation with Amma Amofaah-Ofosu and Abena Karikari on the impact of digitization on reading, ably moderated by Michael Opare. Amma is an Educator exploring language and its influence on human psychology. She runs 27 Beginnings. Abena is like a reactor of nuclear fusion—taking in ideas and stories and igniting them into a powerful chain reaction of pan-African knowledge. She runs Akenkan Bookstore.

Are we reading more in the digital age

And so we begin.

By Ernest Armah

The writer is a thought leader with a decade experience working at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainable development.