What is Reading?

I feel mildly overwhelmed with life right nows. I don't mind reading a lot, but at a certain point you can not read every word of every line. I have loved Rainbows End and am just beginning to have a relationship with Jeff Howe's, Crowdsourcing (the link is to his blog and it is really well done), but I am swamped! We live in a time when we have access to and are expected to consume outrageous amounts of information on a daily basis. There is no way that we can process all of the information all of the time so I need to find a way to evaluate and respond to information.

So what does it mean to read? Does reading mean to interpret little squiggles on a white page? Or does it go a little deeper? He is what I think. Reading is a way to transfer ideas, and to help persuade others to action. If that is the ultimate goal then, is reading every letter necessary? Or is it sufficient to skim and paraphrase so until understand the ideas and try to get a feel for the authors style? I think that the second is more true. I will never be able to read all of this text before the weekend, but I am learning that that is probably not what is expected. My goal in reading is to consume enough to create worthwhile content and to be able to connect with like minds.