Reading has had a long history, no doubt.  But here’s why I think it’s future may be shorter than its past.   The stages of reading:

Reading = interpreting drawings
Writing in symbols or pictures to communicate messages started some 70,000 years ago they reckon, with the first proven examples about  7,000BC.  An example of such writing from the “Tartaria Tablets“, dating from 5300 BC:

So at that stage reading was about cartoons, pretty much…

Reading = interpreting symbols
Symbols (otherwise called glyphs) that stand for something abstract – like letters, then emerged around 3000BC.  The “Vinca Symbols” are one of the first steps towards what we know today as an alphabet:

Phonetic writing (where characters represent sounds, which in turn represent names for things) then evolved from tablets (oh yes, the iPad of its day) to books to newspapers to magazines.  Through rock to papyrus to paper, from printing press to colour laser.

Reading = text + image + video
But letters aren’t enough.  Reading today means getting informtion from a screen full of text, images and video.  Ebooks aside (more about that in my next post), that’s what the current generation means reading.

NEAR FUTURE: Reading = interacting
Even today’s state-of-the art reading (the internet) is lean-forward and stare, with the occasional click (or finger swipe) to navigate around content.  We like to think of it as interactive, but really its static.  It may be targeted or personalized, but usually barely so. 

For the first step towards truly interactive content, and the next phase of writing and reading, take a look at the Microsoft Courier demo below.  Apart from making Apple’s iHype (iPad) seem like a brick, it feels to me that this is the dawn of Personal.

(http://www.viddler.com/simple_on_site/dec196af)  This will change reading forever.

Reading = dead?
Let’s not forget reading is just a way of getting information into our brains.

The problems with text (specifically our Roman alphabet) are:

• Too many languages, too much translation effort.  We all travel to much to not share a language
• Text doesn’t  convey tone/intent/emotion/color
• Text is slow to absorb and inefficient
• Spelling is clumsy (like txt spk, which iznt gr8, u no)

 Text, images, audio and video wil merge – into something new.  Something more efficient.  “Reading” will be what slow-minded people of the past did.

Communication will happen in its most efficient possible way (which has always be the case) – likely directly into our brains in a format perfectly suited to our neurons.

Reading, as we know it, will be dead.  Even the written word may fall by the wayside.