> The reality is that before, you needed to read huge swaths of information to find/know the relevant information. Now you don’t.
> The density of useful information I gather from places like Wikipedia, even long form articles is substantially higher than I got reading non-fiction.
You're in good company. Sam Bankman-Freid:
I would never read a book. I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.
You do actually need to read huge swaths of information to
understand the relevant information. A good nonfiction book isn't long because of low information density: it's because the ideas are so complicated that it takes an entire book to explain it. Your approach is emblematic of a modern trend where people know a bunch of smart factoids but have no broader wisdom or understanding.
Not reading books because of "information denisty" is a lazy rationalization for dumbing yourself down. Wikipedia is good as a quick reference if you already understand something, but a disaster for learning.