The statistic is total garbage
nobody reads books in spain
and democracy doesn't have anything to do with that
and democracy is not desirable per se
but of course it wouldn't need to be stated if the writer wasn't a dogmatic idy0t
No Spanish reading crisis?
51–60 of 142 posts
Re: No Spanish reading crisis?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was mostly speaking of nonfiction. Though I find most fiction doesn't age well in any medium. Appreciating it often requires social context I don't really have time to learn. And many fictional works from the past are chock full of racism, sexism, irrational social phobias, etc. For those who put in the work, there isn't even a cultural bond to enjoy since most of the people who originally consumed those works are…
> Though I find most fiction doesn't age well in any medium. What a crazy take! > Appreciating it often requires social context I don't really have time to learn. ???? > And many fictional works from the past are chock full of racism, sexism, irrational social phobias, etc I have some news for you. That stuff has lasted for as long as humans have existed, and will continue to exist as long as humans do. It is intrins…
> That stuff has lasted for as long as humans have existed, and will continue to exist as long as humans do.
No doubt. Doesn't mean I want to consume more of it via fiction.
Re: No Spanish reading crisis?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you expand on the audiobook part? Im assuming that screens dont count because its not novels/literature but audio books are the same content but delivered by a different medium, I am genuinely curious as to your opinion on is not counting
Audiobooks do not feel like disconnecting. It feels like another app on my smart device pumping digital sound into my ears. Leaving my devices inside and sitting on the porch, reading a book feels much healthier for my brain. And more intentional consumption than passive noise to kill time.
> feels much healthier
Isn't that how tarot cards and all that bollocks works?
Re: No Spanish reading crisis?
#54The original article is comparing "a 2023 study showing that only 16% of Americans read for pleasure in a given day, down from the (already low) number of 28% in 2004" with "the percentage of the overall Spanish population that reads for pleasure has increased every year since 2017, reaching 66% in 2025".
I think a big part of the discrepancy probably comes from the different time frames. If you ask somebody who reads for pleasure once a week whether they did so on a given day, they'll say yes 14% of the time, but if you ask them whether they read for pleasure in general, they'll say yes 100%, after all they do it every week!
It would be nice if reading researchers could agree on a standard set of survey questions for the purpose of easy comparison.
Re: No Spanish reading crisis?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was mostly speaking of nonfiction. Though I find most fiction doesn't age well in any medium. Appreciating it often requires social context I don't really have time to learn. And many fictional works from the past are chock full of racism, sexism, irrational social phobias, etc. For those who put in the work, there isn't even a cultural bond to enjoy since most of the people who originally consumed those works are…
> Though I find most fiction doesn't age well in any medium. What a crazy take! > Appreciating it often requires social context I don't really have time to learn. ???? > And many fictional works from the past are chock full of racism, sexism, irrational social phobias, etc I have some news for you. That stuff has lasted for as long as humans have existed, and will continue to exist as long as humans do. It is intrins…
> Though I find most fiction doesn't age well in any medium
Shakespeare is so old it's now undecipherable to any English speaker without a cliffnotes explaining it all.... for instance
Re: No Spanish reading crisis?
#56>Democracy is safe in Spain! Honestly, this sounds like a shitpost and I'd remove the line if I was the author. That aside, I really don't understand the glorification of reading. I love reading (also I'm Spanish) and I do it every day, but reading can also just mean reading romance novels and living in a parallel unrealistic world, and that doesn't make you or "democracy" better than a non-reader that may be a movie…
Yeah that is a reach. Also based in Spain and Im not sure they read as much as they say here with teens at home. I could not find any source information for the numbers anywhere (maybe I missed it)
Re: No Spanish reading crisis?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMHO screens and audio don't count as reading books.
Could you expand on the audiobook part? Im assuming that screens dont count because its not novels/literature but audio books are the same content but delivered by a different medium, I am genuinely curious as to your opinion on is not counting
IMO audiobooks and physical books are an identical experience for passive reading, but not for active reading.
So audiobook genre fiction is reading, but audiobook War and Peace or audiobook The C Programming Language doesn't count. Not for arbitrary gate-keeping reasons, but because reading those books implies a more active form of engagement than marching linearly through it.
Re: No Spanish reading crisis?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen many of these types of articles, and usually they are taking about long form reading, meaning books.
What's a book, though? I suppose people would at least count a traditional e-book. Does long-form fanfic count? How about a book-length website? What about one that was originally published as a book and then republished online?
I think it's obvious enough without getting into the weeds like this unless their sample size is unreasonably small. E-book yes obviously counts. For the rest, like fanfic? Probably, but does it matter here? Is this actually going to move the needle?
Re: No Spanish reading crisis?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's a book, though? I suppose people would at least count a traditional e-book. Does long-form fanfic count? How about a book-length website? What about one that was originally published as a book and then republished online?
I'm sure the general population being asked whether they read books have a very clear idea of what a book is.
Is that understanding also cross-culturally consistent? That's a typical failure mode in comparative surveys between different countries - the meaning of the question depends on the translation used in each language. I imagine here the implied frequency might also vary between languages; maybe English speakers don't say they "read" unless they read once a week, while Spanish speakers are laxer?