51–60 of 85 posts
I went in a Barnes & Noble recently and was underwhelmed by the sheer amount of vapid crap masquerading as literature these days. I'm pretty sure if people are avoiding most of that crap that it's a good thing not a bad thing.
I’ve found my own reading for pleasure has dropped a lot the past year as well and it’s almost entirely due to AI. Most(easily 90%) of my reading came in the form of serialized novels that are published chapter by chapter in various forums. They’ve all been swamped with AI content that’s good enough to not be immediately obvious but then becomes a waste of time after a few paragraphs. And it’s just a firehose of this…
> reading for pleasure (reading a book, newspaper, magazine, reading on electronic devices and listening to audiobooks) Given the social media engagement numbers, for better or worse that would be enough to put us at peak reading. Is it fun ? nobody's setting on gun on people's head so it would still fit the article's définition IMHO. This reminds me of articles lamenting people's attention span because they don't wa…
Social media seems to be moving to images and now even (ultra) short-form video content. Does a hypothetic 40% increase in social media engagement offset a 40% decline in reading in any meaningful way?
But even setting that aside, while YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are the mainstream, Threads and Bluesky came up as new platforms and are text first. They could have let the Twitter paradigm die but chose to heavily invest in that market instead, and it seems to be working, so at least the idea still has legs ?
Interestingly, with current LLM limitations I'd assume text in - text out usage will keep being the focus for a while as well.
> The paper also noted that although reading with children is rare, it has not changed much over time. This part really got to me, reading to one's children is rare? That's so sad. My toddler loves reading with me.
Maybe I am misunderstanding the study but I don’t understand why reading a magazine or newspaper is counted while reading an article on one’s phone is not.
You in fact are misunderstanding the article, reading on an electronic device is included reading for pleasure - it is one of the three categories listed parenthetically as that. Quote: The study focused on two activities: reading for pleasure (reading a book, newspaper, magazine, reading on electronic devices and listening to audiobooks) and reading with children.
> ATUS asked participants to recall all their activities over 24 h, beginning at 4 a.m. on the day prior to the interview and ending at 4 a.m. on the day of the interview (Figure 1). Activities were coded using a standard lexicon, verified by two coders. We focused on two reading outcomes: (1) daily reading for pleasure, classified by ATUS as reading for personal interest (e.g., reading a magazine/book/newspaper, listening to audiobooks, reading on a Kindle or other e-reader; Table S1); and (2) daily reading with children (e.g., reading to or with household or non-household children, listening to child read, helping child read; Table S1).
Further, reading on tablets, computers, or smartphones was not explicitly included in examples, making it unclear whether this behavior would have been classified as reading for personal interest or technology use. I would like to cast doubt on the findings if they don't include phones.
Further, reading on tablets, computers, or smartphones was not explicitly included in examples, making it unclear whether this behavior would have been classified as reading for personal interest or technology use. I would like to cast doubt on the findings if they don't include phones.
It shouldn't count. That is distracted reading, imo.
Maybe it's because of applying too narrow a definition of what contents should count as "for pleasure reading": books, magazines... but what about blog posts, social media? Certainly, that's something people read for personal pleasure?!
Also does it account for audiobooks, I love a good novel but after all day on screens at work my eye can't take physically reading a book.
Further, reading on tablets, computers, or smartphones was not explicitly included in examples, making it unclear whether this behavior would have been classified as reading for personal interest or technology use. I would like to cast doubt on the findings if they don't include phones.
It shouldn't count. That is distracted reading, imo.
Maybe I am misunderstanding the study but I don’t understand why reading a magazine or newspaper is counted while reading an article on one’s phone is not.