Internet addiction and the habit of book reading • Hacker News Board

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#151

Post by kinghtown » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 11:18 AM UTC

hardwaregeek wrote: post #71

senortumnus wrote: post #22

HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is generally afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals of the web - reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc etc down to the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product placement; you get the idea. Let's appreciate HN for the quality of reading material and its curb on our drift to the rest of the 'popular' web. And I don't think I'm alone in al…

Okay I do like HN—I'm here for a reason after all—but it is flawed like any other curation. For one, I find that it veers extremely literal and nerdy. For some topics such as programming and math, this is wonderful, as programming and math are both topics where literalism and nerdiness are required. But in some cases this blend is not great. I wouldn't put HN as a great place to get your knowledge of more social, cul…

Very much agree. Computer related stuff in general, like anecdotes about buying brands to high level programming, and a wide spectrum of STEM discourse is great on HN, but I often find myself scratching my head like “lol really?” at comments which fall outside that. A lot of people here have a bit of a chip on their shoulder in topics outside their expertise just because, I guess, they have a false sense of confidence in all topics, art to philosophy to psychology to parenting etc etc, due to having high level ability in one hard one.

But to be fair, reddit and every other social platform is mostly terrible with both STEM and humanities.

Books will always be supreme.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#152

Post by jimmyvalmer » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 11:19 AM UTC

The article quotes W. Zinsser:

But I do know they [technological advances] won’t make writing twice as good.

So wrong! There's no question Google has improved my writing, enabling "google-fu" which dials in the precise historical reference or literary turn-of-phrase I'm looking for.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#153

Post by viceroyalbean » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

jimmygrapes wrote: post #98

frosted-flakes wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience matches those of others in this thread. I barely read anymore and find it difficul to focus. Largely, my tastes have calcified and narrowed quite a lot. I used to be an adventurous reader and always tried random books I saw on the library shelves, but these days I find it difficult to get into something new, and if I do read a book I've probably read it before. I think if I just start reading it'll come…

One thing that seems to have helped some of my friends who have experienced the same issue of not wanting to read anymore is to find one particular book or style they liked before and go deep into that author's backlog or similar styles. And to add to that, don't be afraid of reading pulpy fiction; you're not trying to impress anybody with what you're reading, you're doing it for yourself. Enjoy it. Read young adult…

I started reading Brandon Sanderson with this mindset and I'm loving it. Before I would only really read nonfiction but I would easily get distracted and didn't read much in practice. Now I'm reading like 100 pages a day and hopefully it improves my concentration. Even if it doesn't I'm really enjoying the books

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#154

Post by macrolime » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 11:25 AM UTC

senortumnus wrote: post #22

HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is generally afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals of the web - reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc etc down to the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product placement; you get the idea. Let's appreciate HN for the quality of reading material and its curb on our drift to the rest of the 'popular' web. And I don't think I'm alone in al…

I "read" much more books than when I was a teenager. The difference is that they're all audiobooks that I listen to while I cook or do other housework or during commutes.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#155

Post by petra » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 11:27 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #56

bmitc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long form things? The longest things I read on the Internet are articles, blog posts, and papers, which are all at most 30 pages.

If I'm blunt, I rarely read long form things. I've found that most long form things are filler. If you make a movie, people expect 2 hours. If you make a book, people expect 200 pages. Both are generally full of a big amount of filler to meet said metrics.

Even with that being true, usually a GOOD non-fiction book will have more depth and value than browsing the internet.

And you can skip parts while reading a book.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#156

Post by hirako2000 » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

Paul_S wrote: post #146

While the article veers a bit all over the place at its core it's about a topic I have given a lot of thought to - relationship between information form and content and our expectations. I still read books but I'm very against fetishising them. I don't understand the emotional connection with paper, typewriters and the general attitude that medium destroys the content. What I think happens a lot is the old correlatio…

Interesting counter balance. I still think what makes books perceived as more valuable is based on a actual facts that comes out of this medium: barrier of entry.

It takes serious dedication to author a book. Writing over 100 pages on any subject takes dedication, ability to organise thoughts, multiple reviews and editing passes. Most other media don't require this level of dedication and abilities to formulate valuable thoughts. Twitter is on the other extreme of the spectrum. Just a short phrase and tap "publish". Can do this on the toilet seat. Even making a video now takes far less effort than writing a book given the productivity tools made available to anyone who has a mid range smartphone.

Edit: it doesn't imply all books are valuable, actually most aren't. But the barrier of entry leads to less noise than found on most other media.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#157

Post by beeboop » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 11:54 AM UTC

politelemon wrote: post #124

senortumnus wrote: post #22

HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is generally afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals of the web - reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc etc down to the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product placement; you get the idea. Let's appreciate HN for the quality of reading material and its curb on our drift to the rest of the 'popular' web. And I don't think I'm alone in al…

> HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is generally afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals of the web - reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc etc down to the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product placement; you get the idea. HN _thinks_ it represents a wellspring of deeper reading just like every other site mentioned also thinks. Same as the others it is a shallow echo…

I agree - HN is still an echo chamber rage machine, and people engage in the outrage and negativity on HN as much as reddit or twitter or facebook or whatever. Yes there's also articles mixed in about some niche technology topic sometimes too.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#158

Post by vmurthy » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 11:57 AM UTC

wincy wrote: post #36

senortumnus wrote: post #22

HN represents a wellspring of deeper reading than is generally afforded by the current entertainment cruft portals of the web - reddit, FB, insta, USA today, financial times, etc etc down to the SEO hellholes of recipe sites, youtube product placement; you get the idea. Let's appreciate HN for the quality of reading material and its curb on our drift to the rest of the 'popular' web. And I don't think I'm alone in al…

I used to read books all the time. I spent most of my waking hours as a teenager reading books. I’m 35 now and can barely hold attention on anything, I read maybe 3 books a year if I’m lucky. Even on Hacker News I almost exclusively read and comment on the comments, not the actual article unless I see someone says “have you read the article?” I don’t really know why. I have 8+ hours a day screentime on my iPhone, whi…

>I’m just lost and exist mostly moment to moment

Tbh, this sounds like a cry for help. Have you consulted a professional? If it's not a health issue, can I recommend changing your surroundings a bit and make it conducive to reading? FWIW, I keep my phone in 0 notifications mode and I don't have FB/Insta/TikTok etc. In addition, I keep some books and magazines lying around so it's easy to grab a quick read every now and then.

Finally, I have a goodreads reading challenge on and it's a nice kick to keep getting closer to the goal. This year's goal was 22 books and I did it recently :)

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#159

Post by Nasrudith » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 12:00 PM UTC

hardwaregeek wrote: post #79

tinyhouse wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tech workers and we have to face facts that tech workers are predominantly white and Asian and male In the US at least many tech companies have way more Indians that white. It's funny to me how Indians in the US are usually not in the white/asian conversation, and even often put in the "people of color" group. Just shows most people think race is about skin color.

I view it as Indian ⊆ Asian ⊆ people of color. I agree that Indians are often neglected in the Asian discourse, although I think there's been more work to include non-East Asians in the conversation lately.

Reminds me of one bit of a conversation I heard post-graduation ceremony from an Indian fellow grad insistent upon Indians not being asian on the grounds of it being its own distinct subcontinent with its own ocean. I'm not entirely quite sure what to make of that personal perspective and what it qualifies as.

Re: Internet addiction and the habit of book reading

#160

Post by Laforet » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 12:04 PM UTC

Zircom wrote: post #74

betwixthewires wrote: post #29

I actually read more books now. I download them and load them up on my phone and read them like crazy. Also discussions on sites like this have expanded my articulation and understanding of many concepts and topics. I spent a lot of time, years, dedicating a significant potion of my life to reading educational material of all sorts. I don't know if I use the internet differently, maybe, I don't use Facebook or twitte…

I bought a Kindle and that was nice, but I'm terrible at remembering to bring it with me when I leave the house, and the (admittedly small) effort of having to connect it to my computer to load epubs onto it is enough friction to stop me from doing it in the first place a lot of the time. I usually obtain them from less than legal sources and buy a hardcopy if I like it. For awhile I was buying ebooks straight from t…

I broke my Kindle by dropping it a few years back and the number of books I've read really took a nosedive from then. Maybe it's time to buy another one.