Absorptive reading is historically specific?

I cheered for Richard Brody's wonderful Front Row post about reading, in response to George Packer's concerns about being unable to read Kierkegaard as absorptively as he used to:

But I’d bet that George is a better, if more laborious, reader of Kierkegaard now than he was in his college days, because he brings to his reading a greater variety of experience-—and judicious participation in the Internet flux is a crucial, inescapable part of what counts as experience in our times.

Brody's response is so thoughtful for its gentle recasting of the situation, a nice turn away from the Luddite/Biltonite charges that Packer has dismissed. The final turn to Kierkegaard as media critic is lovely.