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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

#141

Post by dash2 »

palmotea wrote: post #59
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.

> 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? Capitalism is "fixing the glitch" of workers having space energy. I hope soon we'll achieve the ideal bimodal distribution of labor: work intensified to the point where workers that have the energy for nothing but work, and the impoverished totally unemployed that we can just corral and forget ab…

This is one of those very common ideas that cannot survive a ten second encounter with the facts: https://ourworldindata.org/working-more-than-ever

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

#143

Post by N1ckFG »

microtherion wrote: post #35

“A Clockwork Orange” as “Old English” is an amusing anecdote, but it might be worth noting that the novel is written in deliberately nonstandard English mixing in Russian words, so it might be nontrivial to read for people lacking interpolation skills. In the first paragraph, e.g., there is: > There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim. Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Koro…

It's also New Wave science fiction, and once you get past the conlang and the genre conventions, it's still incredibly violent! Kubrick iirc even once said in an interview that he removed some book scenes from his (initially X-rated) film adaptation, because he thought the invented language helped make them less disturbing to read, but audiences watching them dramatized would just give up and walk out. Anyway I sure do see some of the trends described in the article with my younger students and relatives, but such a strange unforced error makes me suspicious of the strength of the research.

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

#144

Post by SkyPuncher »

_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…

I love learning, but I hate reading. Most of my learning now is via audio books while I'm doing something else.

In my view, software development is mostly skimming and pattern recognization. Very little actual, deep reeding in my opinion.

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

#145

Post by pastage »

dash2 wrote: post #142
ramijames wrote: post #140

My kids are active, voracious readers. At least one book (500-700 pages) a week. It feels like one of the only things that I've really done right as a parent.

How did you do it?

Make it joyful

Read books yourself

Make book an important part of your life

Read to the kids

Teach them to read early

Little to no phone use early on

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

#146

Post by wbl »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #131
breezybottom wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

By what standard are novels "recent"? The earliest novels we have originated not long after the first books (aka codices) appeared. The first modern novel was written at the same time as the king james bible, over 400 years ago.

The epic and the play are several thousand years older. Novels are the newest kind of literature, even if it has been a few centuries at this point.

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

#147

Post by lapcat »

palmotea wrote: post #88
lapcat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read while lying on the couch, my head resting on a pillow. Is that not passive enough?

> I read while lying on the couch, my head resting on a pillow. Is that not passive enough? Obviously I meant mentally passive, not physically passive.

I wouldn't call social media relaxing. After all, it's known as doomscrolling. I think reading is actually more relaxing. Social media is addictive, like a drug. Nobody calls cocaine relaxing.

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

#148

Post by lapcat »

bluGill wrote: post #82
lapcat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read while lying on the couch, my head resting on a pillow. Is that not passive enough?

You are good at reading so it is passive. Someone who doesn't read much is not good at it, and so no reading is passive. Get that person to read some more and eventually they get good and it can become passive, but for most it is not. I could watch TV passively (I don't watch TV, but I could). However if you switched my TV for one that received only Spanish - I have enough Spanish that I could understand, but it woul…

> Someone who doesn't read much is not good at it, and so no reading is passive.

How did people get worse at reading, other than choosing to spend time on the alternative activities that I listed? You may be reversing cause and effect.

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

#149

Post by retrac »

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 think a reasonable definition of "novel" is a long-form work in prose, that tells narrative stories, often looking at individual families and characters and their development over time. In that sense, novels are not that novel and there are novels preserved from classical antiquity, India's golden age, and medieval China.

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

#150

Post by WhrRTheBaboons »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #144
_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…

I love learning, but I hate reading. Most of my learning now is via audio books while I'm doing something else. In my view, software development is mostly skimming and pattern recognization. Very little actual, deep reeding in my opinion.

>Most of my learning now is via audio books while I'm doing something else.

You're not actually learning anything then. Memorizing trivia, sure. But not actually learning.

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