To look at and understand written words or symbols, silently or loudly, this is how the Oxford Advanced English Dictionary defines read.
By the definition effort is exerted in reading, that is “looking at” and “understanding”
In our technologically charged world, where our lifestyles are inert, predominated by social media clips that take over all our sensory organs, reading is becoming a lost art.
No one reads these days; to exert the effort to spend some minutes or hours, flipping a newspaper or a book to focus and understand the message conveyed, is a big challenge.
We speed read texts with little comprehension. We cursorily read headlines and assume on messages carried in the article. Indeed, the art of reading is becoming burdensome.
It is so burdensome that it is affecting our big men and women. Yes, the big administrators of the country, the politicians.
The burden of reading affects professionals too, teachers, doctors, accountants, etc.
These days we all depend on AI to do the challenging work of summarising texts and giving us pointers or the main indicators, when that is needed for work, resting and relaxing our brains.
If we do not engage our mental capacities to understand the meaning of things, how can we grow?
Thus, politicians and other professionals pester editors of various newspapers to publish materials for them.
When it is published, just for the person to take the newspaper to go through and see if the material has been published, is so much of a burden that they get back to the editor after a few days to find out if the article has been published.
Although the Ghana Statistical Service pegs our literacy rates (of adults 15 years and above) at 76.5 per cent, it is perfunctory.
At the features desk at the Daily Graphic, I most often get exasperated when after being pestered by a contributer to get his or her article published and publishing it, they get back to you and ask, “Has my article been published?’
When this question is posed to me, I initially counter with, “What article please?”
The counter is to make me composed, for it presupposes that the said article is the only article I must have dealt with, therefore it must be stuck in my mind. More than 15 articles are processed daily on the Features Desk of the Daily Graphic.
Invariably, when a name or the subject of the article, is proffered by the enquirer and checks are made, the article has already been published!
I often ask contributors when that happens, “Why do you then send articles, if you cannot take the paper and search to find if your article has been published?
Must the editor go through the effort of reading an article, taking it through all the various processes of the newsroom, that is, retrieval (sometimes liaising with IT); editing (liaising with colleagues with better knowledge of the subject matter/ or even sometimes calling up professionals to cross check); proof reading (liaising on grammar and language usage); photography (for an appropriate picture to go with the article); designing (further engagements to ensure article and pictures are properly allocated within space constraints); and then make a mental note of the article or write it down somewhere, so that when the contributer calls, it is told him or her when (the day, issue), and where (page of the newspaper) the article was published on and in?
Please, Ghana let us read. We are leaving our minds behind as we strive for development.
And what type of development would we have if it is mindless?
We must read more and talk less. Doing that will make us a settled and better focused people set on issues really mattering in development.
God created reading and He directs us to read to get to know.
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