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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

#281

Post by amanaplanacanal »

vincent-manis wrote: post #263
bkandel wrote: post #174

> 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…

Burgess reputedly disliked the American edition's inclusion of a glossary. I'm in partial agreement with that.The right way to read it is to let the language flow over you, and you gradually start making sense of it. The glossary is useful in demonstrating how brilliantly constructed the Nadsat language is, especially the words derived from Russian: horrorshow from khorosho, good; lewdies from lyudi, people; and star…

Quite a bit of my favorite sci fi is written like that. If you stop to try and figure out exactly what every sentence means, you are missing the experience and probably won't finish.

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

#282

Post by amanaplanacanal »

SoftTalker wrote: post #153
GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " I assumed that people who enjoy software would be into intellectual stimulation but I've learned that this is wrong. " It was truer in the 1980s-1990s, when programming was not a prestigious or high paying job and computers were much cruder and required much more skill to get adequate performance from them. Generally, aspiring hackers were very well read people. There were, of course, corporate programmers doing…

Progamming in a corporate/business environment was not prestigious or high paying then either. It was a decent job, don't get me wrong, but something more similar to accounting or other back-office work in terms of pay and prestige.

I blame it on the COBOL.

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

#283

Post by senordevnyc »

beej71 wrote: post #196
bluetrain wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense, but this comes off as incredibly smug... Glad you're able to find the time to read and write every day, but not not everyone has that luxury.

It's true that I'm in a place of privilege in the world. But it's amazing how much time gets freed up of one doesn't watch TV or read social media. Like the numbers show, it's hours per day. I sympathize with people who truly do not have the time, but that's different from most people who simply choose not to spend their time reading or writing.

By the same token, it’s incredible how much time for watching great movies and TV shows are freed up if you don’t read novels. And while I enjoy both, I’m skeptical that a great novel is any “better” in some objective sense than a great film (or TV show). I have been deeply impacted in a lasting way by both.

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

#284

Post by etrautmann »

everdrive wrote: post #155

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…

Is this real? I spend plenty of time online but have no problem still reading books. I don’t know anyone else who stopped reading books either. I’m 41 so maybe this affects people who grew up with social media but I can’t quite tell how hyperbolic the descriptions of the problem are.

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

#285

Post by senordevnyc »

tolerance wrote: post #111
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 tale…

What an incredibly off-putting and pretentious way to view what probably constitutes the majority of your fellow humans.

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

#286

Post by ozyschmozy »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #48
yomismoaqui wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that literate people can recover from a period of not reading (books) at all. I recently had more than a year of not reading any books that was interrupted when I found about The Culture series. I read Use of Weapons and had to read all novels from that universe. After that I tried to find some books similar to them, tried to read some recommended ones (didn't finish any of them) and stopped reading. In my ca…

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".

After getting a hankering for more Culture books, I recently started going through his other fiction and they're all really fun and scratch a similar itch. I read Feersum Endjinn and The Algebraist, and I'm most of the way through Against a Dark Background now, and they're all great (and quite different from The Culture and each other)

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

#287

Post by ChoGGi »

xpct wrote: post #165
pastage wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Read books yourself Not a parent, but I'm guessing this part is very important :)

I would also say the reading to kids part.

My father goes through books like nothing; my mother not so much, but I have very fond memories of her reading "jock of the bushveld" to us.

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

#288

Post by switchbak »

babelfish wrote: post #266
trashb wrote: post #213

And yet, strangely, Americans are probably reading more words than ever before. This sentence undermines the whole article. People do read more than ever. But we don't recognize it as such. We read on our phone while intermittently reading subtitles of Netflix in the background. We read every time we look at a computer, phone, advertisement etc. But we only count reading paper as "real reading". The shape of reading…

> Why would reading 1000 words of a great philosopher be any different from reading 1000 words of smut online Agree that we should work on reducing the stigma around reading (which, incidentally, feels ridiculous to type); but very clearly one of these exercises your mind and one doesn't. People should want to learn things!

That's mostly a value judgement though.

What about fiction vs non-fiction? Travel vs escapism? This is hugely subjective, and very personal. What one person finds educational could be a navel gazing time wasting pursuit to someone else.

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

#289

Post by feoren »

_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…

> 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.

So HN is OK with being extremely condescending toward others as long as it's a general group of others, not a specific HN user? Just imagine this sentence with almost any other activity:

"You don't like to run? I would have assumed that people who enjoy physical activity would be into real exercise, but I guess they're all actually lazy."

"You don't play an instrument? I would have assumed people who like music would be into creativity, but I guess I was wrong and they're all boring and uncreative."

It is the height of arrogance to assume that people who don't enjoy the same things you like are obviously stupid, lazy losers. And yes, that's absolutely what you are doing in your comment. You seriously cannot imagine any other form of intellectual stimulation that they might be into instead?

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

#290

Post by apparent »

RobKohr wrote: post #128
functionmouse wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true; I also started reading the comments before clicking the article. Show of hands?

I made it about 15% through the article, but that is a about normal for the Atlantic. They generally get their point across and then rattle on for more time than I am interested in reading. Guess I'm part of the post literate world. I also perfer short stories instead of novels.

There's actually some different content covered later in the article, but yes it is quite long. I'm sure plenty of people consume articles like these by asking LLMs for a summary.
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