Extra Credit: Twilight of the Books

The words and their definitions that I didn't understand are:

Pollster- a person whose occupation is the taking of public-opinion polls

Latitude- freedom from narrow restrictions; freedom of action, opinion

Correlations- A causal, complementary, parallel, or reciprocal relationship, especially a structural, functional, or qualitative correspondence between two comparable entities

Sociologists- study society and social behavior by examining the groups, cultures, organizations, and social institutions people form. They also study the activities in which people participate, including social, religious, political, economic, and business organizations. They study the behavior of, and interaction among, groups, organizations, institutions, and nations and how they react to phenomena such as the spread of technology, health epidemics, crime, and social movements

Arcane- known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric

Neurobiological- the branch of biology that is concerned with the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system

Cuneiform- having the form of a wedge; wedge-shaped

Hieroglyphs-A picture or symbol used in hieroglyphic writing

Phonetic- corresponding to pronunciation

Ideographic- an ideogram (a written symbol that represents an idea or object directly rather than a particular word or speech sound, as a Chinese character.)

Browbeaten- to intimidate by overbearing looks or words; bully
(www.dictionary.com)


Caleb Crain the author of "Twilight of the Books" wrote about how people don't read books anymore. In his article he gives many good facts that support his idea. He shows how many people throughout the years read books and also how kids are reading books while high teens and adults don't anymore. He also gives proof of why these numbers are going down. He says this because news papers aren't circulating as much anymore. This is just some of the many evidences used in "Twilight of the Books." Caleb Crain did a very good job in convincing me that books are being lost to modern technology like video games and tv.