One morning not long ago, coffee in hand, as the sun began to glimmer on the horizon, I found myself rereading a passage from “A History of Reading” by Alberto Manguel.

He writes: “At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book, that string of confused, alien ciphers, shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader.”

Manguel reminds us of something we already know: Reading is not just a task to be learned, but part of our psychic DNA, a human instinct, as essential to our development as speaking or walking. That morning, his words opened something in me, reminding me of the quiet power I’ve always associated with a good story, and with the life revelations stories contain.

Then, hours later in the Crowder College lobby, I watched students scroll endlessly on their phones, eyes darting, thumbs flicking. They were reading: words, captions, lyrics, stories of a different kind. The contrast jarred me. This wasn’t reading as I had known it. Or was it?

That question has lingered. I teach writing and literature, and I care deeply about the lives and habits of readers, the power of storytelling in shaping who we are. But lately, I’m no longer sure how to define “reader.”

My students rarely pick up novels or short stories the way past generations might have. They don’t carry dog-eared paperbacks in their backpacks. Yet they do consume text constantly — Reddit threads, YouTube comments, TikTok musings and news snippets. In terms of raw word count, they might be reading more than ever.

But, something feels different, and I struggle to name exactly what.

Reading once asked us to slow down and dwell, to hear the stories that added to our lives. Mark Twain, a fellow Missourian, certainly knew how to tell a story that changed the way we see the world. Stories do far more than inform; they change us, inviting us to live inside someone else’s mind for a time. Today, reading often happens in flashes: a tweet, a meme, a three-second summary. We read to react, not to reflect. It’s reading with one foot already out the door.

Yet, I don’t want to be another voice lamenting what’s lost, especially not here in Cassville. Ours is a community of humble readers and storytellers. There’s the gentleman I saw at the public library who returned his stack of Westerns with a smile and a nod. The woman at the diner, waiting for her shift change, leafing through a well-loved romance novel.

Or, our mayor, Mr. Jon Horner, who writes novels reflecting life in Barry County, whose stories are worth reading. These are our people, and they are still reading, though not always in the ways we expect.

Manguel’s book reminds us that reading has never been a fixed act. In ancient times, it was performed aloud, in public squares or by candlelight. It was a communal ritual. Later, it became solitary and introspective. Now, it might be collaborative, even chaotic, shared in snippets, screenshotted and sent, commented on and memed.

Is this still reading? Or is it something adjacent, a new kind of mental dance?

I think about this when I pass the Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood, where a child’s picture book might sit beside a murder mystery or a devotional. These small boxes represent hope, a belief that someone, somewhere, will pause long enough to step inside a story.

Stories may not erase our suffering or satisfy our longing for truth, but the act of reading them does change us. Stories remind us what is good and beautiful, and here in Cassville, we have much to be thankful for and to share through stories.

So I wonder aloud: What has reading become? Does it change the nature of storytelling itself?

This is not a scolding about screen time, nor a nostalgia for some imagined golden age of readers lost in thought. But, I do want to ask: What kind of reading do we want to preserve in Cassville? What stories might help us slow down again, not because we must, but because we choose to?

Maybe the answer starts small — a parent reading aloud at bedtime; a book club forming at the library; a single student discovering that, against all odds, the old poem or short story still has something to say.

The scroll has changed. But maybe the impulse, that ancient pull toward words, meaning, story — has not.

Maybe we simply need to look up from the screen, pause our scrolling, and remember what it feels like to turn a page.

Terry Held is an English instructor at Crowder College, Cassville. The views expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Crowder College. He would appreciate hearing what you think. He can be reached at TerryHeld@Crowder.edu.