251–260 of 349 posts
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Decline since when? A few hundred years ago most people were illiterate farmers.
Even in the 1800s the literacy rate in the US was over 50% (the highest in the world), because it was founded by "sola scriptura" Protestants for whom Bible reading was a religious duty.
I refuse to believe that the decline of our education system is some inevitable, intractable problem.
So there is absolutely nothing wrong in decline. It's mathematically necessary. (Well, stagnation, or slow increase is also possible.)
I also don't think that the only function of the education system is to score higher and higher on tests, it has so many other functions: keep kids happy, turn kids into happy adults, lower the tensions is society, create a better world for everyone, etc.
There wouldn't be much point of scoring better in tests if it resulted in unhappy kids, unhappy adults, broken society, broken world, now would it?
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> Reading an entire book takes much more time than placing an online bet. Yes, but do you only do things for pleasure if they're done quickly? Is your sex always over in a minute? Also, I was responding to this: > Likewise, reading for pleasure "on any given day" is a totally different measure than "placed a bet last year". Yes, reading for pleasure "on any given day" is a different measure than "placed a bet last ye…
> Yes, but do you only do things for pleasure if they're done quickly? Is your sex always over in a minute? This is a valid critique, but the motivations are not the same for reading books and gambling. Both are done partly for entertainment, but reading is partly for edification whereas gambling is partly for making money (in theory, at least). People want to make money almost universally, whereas ongoing edificatio…
Not necessarily. Is Harry Potter for edification? Trashy romance novels?
In any case, the article specifically notes that reading for pleasure, a subset of all reading, has declined.
> One conflated a time-consuming activity with a quick one, and the other conflated time periods of comparison.
There was no conflation by the article.
You presented a selective quotation that omitted the yearly book reading stats and attempted to argue misleadingly that the article was comparing a daily time scale to a yearly time scale.
I think you missed the point of the reading vs. gambling comparison. From the article: "Gambling has become [emphasis mine] a more common leisure activity than reading a book." In other words, the change is the point. Gambling was not always more popular than reading.
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…
You would be surprised just how quickly you can re-learn the focus to enjoy long-form writing and novels. Much like exercise, don't let your ego get in the way. Find something you enjoy, even if it's a bit trash, and just make it a habit. Like with everything you do regularly, your brain will get better at it, the habit will become more automatic, and you'll find yourself wanting to read more, and more often. It's ve…
when you spend long times focusing your attention upon that whole reading process it tends to stick. Like a drug with long-term effects. Do you want those effects?
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> Yes, but do you only do things for pleasure if they're done quickly? Is your sex always over in a minute? This is a valid critique, but the motivations are not the same for reading books and gambling. Both are done partly for entertainment, but reading is partly for edification whereas gambling is partly for making money (in theory, at least). People want to make money almost universally, whereas ongoing edificatio…
> reading is partly for edification Not necessarily. Is Harry Potter for edification? Trashy romance novels? In any case, the article specifically notes that reading for pleasure, a subset of all reading, has declined. > One conflated a time-consuming activity with a quick one, and the other conflated time periods of comparison. There was no conflation by the article. You presented a selective quotation that omitted…
> Margaret Rennix, Harvard’s assistant director for humanities and social-sciences support, told me she’d spoken with a student who was struggling to read a book written in Old English. The culprit: Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange. (The student used ChatGPT to “translate” the book into easier language.) Has the author read A Clockwork Orange? It is filled with made-up "slang" that's basically just Rus…
Wow. That went over the heads of both a Harvard student and an Atlantic journalist.
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Yes? What's so important about novels? They're a relatively recent innovation in literature.
Programming is even more recent
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>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.
With me (I have ADHD), I would never be able to listen to an audiobook alone, I would zone out and day dream one paragraph in. But If I'm playing a game on my phone, I can listen and pay attention for hours.
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when you spend long times focusing your attention upon that whole reading process it tends to stick. Like a drug with long-term effects. Do you want those effects?
This is very difficult with our notification-based lifestyles. Either I allow myself to be interrupted or I come back to missed messages and calls.
Given those two options, the reasonable one is the latter. Just miss a few messages and calls, control your own time.