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In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

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Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#271

Post by BlueTemplar »

bostonwalker wrote: post #218
asdff wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is an assumption being made of the pre tv “informed person” that either never really existed as such, or merely modernized into someone who might consume their internet content in the form of Atlantic articles over tick toks and pod casts. Most people have always been poorly informed and driven to emotional content over the plain facts. A tale as old as the first chieftain we chose to emotionally believ…

Naively, I would think the same. But in the first part of AOTD, Neil Postman argues pretty convincingly that America in the 18th and 19th centuries was the most literate, bookish society on Earth and in the later parts of the book that that heritage was lost with the invention of the telegraph, radio, and later TV. In other words, TV and the internet as technologies are not "neutral" in their effect on society, they…

What do the historians of that era actually say about it ?

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#272

Post by NiloCK »

kleinsch wrote: post #219
mlsu wrote: post #195

The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration. When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiologi…

You’re commenting on an article about reading, which is also a solitary passive consumption activity. I suspect you’re not trying to make the point that reading books destroys relationships and self construction, so this seems like a roundabout way of saying that your favored passive consumption activity is better than what other people choose.

Reading is categorically different than the media characterized as passive here.

If you fall asleep with a book, you wake up on the same page. Advancement through the text is user-driven, not media-driven.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#273

Post by eddd-ddde »

yapyap wrote: post #269
mlsu wrote: post #195

The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration. When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiologi…

Is reading not also a “there” thing?

At least to me, reading is much more an "active" task. It takes effort to read that extra paragraph. My eyes are closing or wandering around. My hands are tempted to close the book and do something else, even if it's a book I like!

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#274

Post by goldfeld »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #223

The title and apparent argument of this confound me somewhat. For those of us who read many, many books very frequently, but stick mostly to digital versions simply out of space and access convenience, it's not hard to feel as if we're somehow being looked down upon because we're not hauling around a bundle of weighty tomes.. Why should print be so specifically necessary if a book's content is what defines it? That I…

But the tome's weight is borne up by the table, whereas throwing any light in your face will affect your eyes. Possibly dawn and twilight gazing are quite beneficial.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#275

Post by alt187 »

kleinsch wrote: post #219
mlsu wrote: post #195

The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration. When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiologi…

You’re commenting on an article about reading, which is also a solitary passive consumption activity. I suspect you’re not trying to make the point that reading books destroys relationships and self construction, so this seems like a roundabout way of saying that your favored passive consumption activity is better than what other people choose.

A book sticks with you, but reels phase through you like light through a window. Once the book is finished, your mind races with ideas about the book; good or bad.

Instagram reels leave you with nothing. Once the next reel passes, the previous one is flushed down the memory, as if these last 28 seconds were nothingness.

While the humble reel only demands a vague trance-like state and your eyes turned to the phone, the books needs your full attention and mental capacity to be enjoyed completely.

Note that none of this is specific to books. Shows, movies, (solo) games. They're all about something. The point of instagram reel is being about nothing at all. Watching it to fill your head with void. A silent, temporary death. "Psychological obliteration" is particularly apt here.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#276

Post by grayhatter »

Aeolun wrote: post #268
grayhatter wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use imagination when I read. The connections are instinctual, and the layouts are often irrelevant (which I can say because I've never attempted to consider them and don't ever find myself missing out on the story). I'd like to say I'm astounded when I hear other people visit other worlds when they read, but really that whole idea is so foreign to me, it might as well be a complete lie. I have no thread in wh…

So when a scene is described, what happens in your head? You take it all in as a sort of dry list of facts? If someone gets punched in the face that conjures an image of a fist connecting with a face for me.

> You take it all in as a sort of dry list of facts?

"dry list" was your description, not mine. But also, no. Take the common example;

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

You don't have to imagine a picture of shoes, nor of a for sale sign to go... "oh, shit...".

Or even even that's too far to grasp... consider the melody of happy song, or a sad song. I assume you don't imagine a piano to figure out which it is?

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#277

Post by nicbou »

agumonkey wrote: post #263
mlsu wrote: post #195

The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration. When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiologi…

I'm mildly affected by "modern web" issues, and I reckon that the imaginative part of my brain is in a coma whenever I browse these sites. The minute I'm outside of an internet connection, a whole lot of emotions, ideas, plans come back at once. And very very rarely can I browse the web while not losing that. This is something I didn't experience before... say smartphones, even with a good dsl line, i wasn't dilluted…

I experience the same thing when I travel, especially when I travel on foot or by bicycle. These long periods of low stimulus thought are really helpful. It makes me want to do a lot of things off-screen.

When I am home I really struggle to put things into practice because the easiest thing to do when I wake up is to look at my phone before I sit at my computer.

I do a lot of meaningful work on the computer, but I’m uneasy about how frictionless it is to just be on the computer and never act in the real world.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#278

Post by BlueTemplar »

zusammen wrote: post #244
Yeul wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids see adults who don't read so why should they? It makes me kinda sad. Videogames need voice acting now to become successful because nobody has the reading or concentration skills. When I was a child I taught myself English by playing Planescape Torment.

My kids convinced me to try out a couple of those old final fantasy games from the 90s. As someone who studied Kabbalah I was intrigued by the fact that they named a character Sephiroth, although the character really had nothing to do with the name or concept. Anyway, I was already old so I didn’t have the same emotional connection (except when that girl was killed) because neither the writing nor the realism was at…

Funny that. I'm part of the generation really hit by FF7, and it was indeed quite memorable. I have plenty of memorable books read around the same era too. Also... I guess 'writing' in video games covers a lot more than just words.

Oh, also in another media from the same era and the same country : Neon Genesis Evangelion (which I only discovered this year and which hit harder than I expected). And it has a lot of Kabbalah symbolism in it ! Why ? The lead author basically says because it was exotic and cool... (I only now put two and two together for Sephiroth, but then I barely thought of him for the last couple of decades...)

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#279

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

kleinsch wrote: post #219
mlsu wrote: post #195

The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration. When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiologi…

You’re commenting on an article about reading, which is also a solitary passive consumption activity. I suspect you’re not trying to make the point that reading books destroys relationships and self construction, so this seems like a roundabout way of saying that your favored passive consumption activity is better than what other people choose.

It's a different sort of 'passive'. There is this thing called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network which 'lights up' in very different ways, depending on what you do, and how. One could argue that is to be expected, because different regions of the brain are exercised. But that's not all of it. Regarding exercise, think of 'Use it, or lose it'. It's mostly the imagination which is exercised while reading. If it isn't, it shrivels.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#280

Post by BlueTemplar »

xorcist wrote: post #65
clarionbell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is if they actually are just as capable, or if they are gaming the metric used by educators. My money is on the latter, but then again I do tend to have a negative outlook.

From my experience it is obviously the latter. Reading well, on paper or on screen, really requires you to put your complete attention to it. Audio (podcasts) and video (youtube) have the advantage of not requiring your complete attention. Everything else follows from that. Of course it can fit some people better. Just not where it matters.

And then you realize you weren't paying attention and have to skip back several minutes. (Which can happen with a book too !)

Also, "podcasts" go quite a bit back : since it became practical to record radio (wire already, or did that only start with cassette tapes ?)

TV got that too with it's own tapes, but the portability and diversity was much worse until digital video got cheap enough.

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