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It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

theatlantic.com

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Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#111

Post by tolerance »

TrackerFF wrote: post #3

I was somewhat surprised to find out that illiteracy does not mean that someone needs to be a total (or near) analphabet - but rather that it is a broad and wide spectrum. I always imagined that “teenagers can’t read” meant that they couldn’t read at all, but then I never met such a person. Reading is definitely a skill that needs to be learned and maintained. Going from reading a couple of hundred words, to even a l…

A good idea to consider might be what Hans Magnus Enzensberger referred to as "second-order illiteracy".

> [The second-order illiterate] has come a long way: his loss of memory causes him no suffering; his lack of will makes life easy for him; he values his inability to concentrate; he considers it an advantage that he neither knows nor understands what is happening to him. He is mobile. He is adaptive. He has a talent for getting things done. We need have no worries about him. It contributes to the second-order illiterate's sense of well-being that he has no idea that he is a second-order illiterate. He considers himself well-informed; he can decipher instructions on appliances and tools; he can decode pictograms and checks. And he moves within an environment hermetically sealed against anything that might infect his consciousness. That he might come to grief in this environment is unthinkable. After all, it produced and educated him in order to guarantee its undisturbed continuation.

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/IN+PRAISE+OF+ILLITERACY.-a062...

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#113

Post by throw4847285 »

breezybottom wrote: post #100
GPerson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not. Novels are fiction by the way.

Yes? What's so important about novels? They're a relatively recent innovation in literature.

I see that pedantry is more intellectually stimulating than either programming or reading!

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#114

Post by AnimalMuppet »

apparent wrote: post #16

> Adult-literacy scores have also dropped: Nearly 30 percent of American adults cannot paraphrase or make inferences from a multipage text. In 2017, that number was less than 20 percent. Shrinking the passages on the SAT from full-page to a few sentences will exacerbate this trend.

Hmm. If someone knew the number of graduates from 2017 to 2026, they could estimate what fraction of them could paraphrase and make inferences.

My stab at it: Looks like about 36 million high school graduates from 2017 to 2026. The US population is about 350 million.

20% of 350 million is 70 million, so 70 million people couldn't paraphrase in 2017. 30% is 105 million, so 105 million people couldn't in 2026. That means that of the 36 million high school graduates from 2017 to 2026, only one million of them could paraphrase or make inferences from a multipage text?

I know the US educational system is a mess, but I find it hard to believe that it's quite that much of a mess. Can anyone point out flaws in the math?

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#115

Post by throw4847285 »

not-kinsale-joe wrote: post #54
_doctor_love wrote: post #21

We were in an age of reading? I gave up about 10 years ago on people as readers. I have recommended so many books and articles to software people over the years and it's honestly depressing how many people have told me they don't like to read. Like...you're a programmer? And you don't like to read? I assumed that people who enjoy software would be into intellectual stimulation but I've learned that this is wrong. Mor…

Can you recommend me a book to read?

How about an Elmore Leonard novel? Very digestible novels from a deceptively skilled craftsman.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#116

Post by wing-_-nuts »

breezybottom wrote: post #75
ashleyn wrote: post #11

I refuse to believe that the decline of our education system is some inevitable, intractable problem.

Decline since when? A few hundred years ago most people were illiterate farmers.

That merely shows that a very basic education is more widespread. One thing that's always struck me, listening to letters read aloud in history shows, is the eloquence and mastery of the language they possessed.

TLDR: fewer people may have been literate, but the ones who were, were damned good writers.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#117

Post by AlotOfReading »

yomismoaqui wrote: post #108
AlotOfReading wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately there really aren't any other books like the culture series. You might enjoy Banks' "The Algebraist" and the completely unrelated though similarly named "The Alchemist".

As I like how Banks writes and they are not directly related to The Culture they won't have to meet the expectations of the others I tried. Thanks, will read them.

Only the first is written by Banks, to clear up any ambiguity. They're very different books, just similarly named.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#118

Post by piltdownman »

vlucas wrote: post #50
lp4v4n wrote: post #23

It's been my impression that classic literature is going the same way as painting and other forms of high art. It was certainly a great display of human intellectual prowess and artistic capacity in bygone times when the world moved at a much slower pace, but who has the time and the energy to read a long novel today? Even cinema is dying and nobody seems to care that much.

> Even cinema is dying and nobody seems to care that much. Cinema is dying from mostly self-inflicted wounds though. They keep making movies (or re-making movies ) with bad writing, bad stories, and unrealistic character development arcs that not many people want to watch. Good movies have been rewarded in theatres. Top Gun: Maverick, Obsession, Project Hail Mary, etc. all had great box office sales when other movies…

'Movies' at Blockbuster level pivoted to ersatz carnival rides post-'Pirates of the Caribbean', focusing on safe IPs and simple plots designed to aid comprehension of the major story beats in the SEA markets without the need to resort to subtitles or dubbing.

'True' Cinema has been going from strength to strength the last decade, with even Netflix putting out Fincher spectacles like 'Mank' on streaming, and A24 bringing introducing a new audience to phenomenal Korean Cinema like 'Parasite' and 'Minari'.

Even in the traditional studio system we have been spoilt in recent years by a succession of Palm D'Or and Oscar winners like Anatomy of a Fall, Triangle of Sadness, Zone of Interest, The Brutalist, Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#119

Post by sanmarzano »

quasiperfectus wrote: post #110
sanmarzano wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. People who bet on sports sink hundreds of hours into forums and consuming visual content. Placing a bet takes 30 seconds, deciding what to bet on takes people a very long time. As long as reading a book.

I think you're vastly overestimating the amount of time people put into researching. A very small minority, sure, but most sports bettors look at the lines and pick.

Possibly. The only people I know that gamble are sports bets, and they consume sports at a near constant rate.
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