My journey to start enjoying reading was not an easy one…my parents would encourage that I read as often as I could. When they could, which was most of the time, they would provide reading material. It was not the most fun thing for me, as I was more interested in playing with my friends in the dusty streets. Our favourite was street soccer, using a “soccer” ball made from paper and plastic bag stuffings – on a lucky day we would get an old stocking as our final wrapper to keep everything intact and protect the ball from rapid unbundling and tear.
The soccer entailed brutal tackling as the ball had no bounce and there was often a lot of slip and sliding to get the ball from the opponent. This was not made any better as most of us had cracked feet and if you had the ball, you’d try to avoid a flying-kick tackle on your shin or falling on the ground, both would result in either scratches on your thigh or knee.
Outside soccer, daily challenges such as lack of ablution facilities by our homes was the norm. Unless it was a big game, we would play next to our homes instead of the soccer field (which we weren’t really allowed to use). So, every time I needed to use the toilet, I’d just run to my house and do the deeds. Toilet paper was not easily available – I think it stopped after I tried to wrap it around my body to impress friends. So, it was often reserved for stay-in visitors – who probably came once a quarter. So, old newspapers were the norm in our toilets – my father is an avid reader, so he would always buy newspapers and tell us that we must read to stay up to date. I was never really interested!!!
The back pages of the newspapers always caught my eyes, and that’s what I’d spend my time reading or rather more browsing through the pictures of sports stars – I didn’t look forward to everything else in the newspaper – unless if it was a typical dramatic newspaper headline – then I’d read the first few lines and the last paragraph of the story, browse through to the money and career sections, and see who were the top earners and what cars they drove…that’s what excited me the most…not the reading, just the headlines, pictures and numbers…
Fast forward to today – minimal play-time, soft toilet paper, an indoor flushing toilet and a cell phone in hand. (The quality of information and reading has probably gone down.) “Breaking” news at the tip of our fingers. The principle of consuming information is still the same – only the tech has changed. With access to information relatively easier and readily available, has the quality that we process it improved?
We have certainly moved from simply having to know facts and theories, but more to process and apply them. I don’t know if many of us have moved with the times. What are your thoughts? How do we close this gap? What areas does this shift affect you in?