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Why can’t we read anymore?

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131–140 of 198 posts

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#131

I'm honestly a little surprised at some of the comments here. I thought most people on here would agree that many of us do suffer from this. I mean, how many of you actually read through the entire article, WITHOUT checking your email, or flipping to twitter/fb to tell the world about this good article you just found? I had to really force myself to read the entire article first, and not give in to that urge to get a…

I read it, start to finish, on the can.

It probably helped that the men's room at work seems to be some kind of Faraday cage, so whatever is cached in your mobile browser when you lock the cubicle door is your reading for the duration.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#132
One reason I've observed is that the quality of printed text isn't necessarily that good. I can't not let go of a good book, I'm only bounded by the time of day and night: if I weren't, I'd read it on one sitting. Or an interesting textbook that I can't wait to get back to even if it's slow to read because it's just so interesting.

But there are lots of books that just aren't that good in comparison to really interesting articles on the internet. There are a even a lot more articles, so the reader must develop the skill of skimming quickly and deciding early whether there's any meat in it. But good articles are really good and they're easy to find. Books that aren't bad and books that are just all right but not really, truly good can't simply compete: earlier they could because there was no alternative. But now there is.

Nothing can beat a good book but there's so many other things to read that are incredibly good too, so the partitioning of our reading time will simply change.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#133

I've memorized a relevant XKCD just for this occasion, because it comes up so much: http://xkcd.com/1227/ > "Intellectual laziness and the hurry of the age have produced a craving for literary nips. The torbid brain... has grown too weak for sustained thought." – Israel Zangwill, The Bachelor's Club, 1891 I highly, highly recommend everybody read "The Information: How The Internet Gets Inside Us" by Adam Gopnik: http…

Its a great point, but the 1800s was a time of incredible technological change. I can completely understand that they were going through these same pressures of new information, a rapidly changing world and the need to keep on top of things and move quickly to make that fortune.

If anything the pace of change has slowed down. But the news and tidbit delivery system is highly optimized.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#134
post #2

I've read over 500 fiction books and 2000+ non-fiction. I've read many of the big thick classics like Moby Dick, War & Peace, Infinite Jest. I've kept a spreadsheet of all the books I've read somewhat like Art Garfunkel[1] (of Simon & Garfunkel music duo). I've also read Nick Carr's "The Shallows"[2] and other authors about about the web's effect on attention span, distractions, etc. With all that said, I'm not convi…

I cannot count what I have read. Growing up (6-12) I had no access to digital tech, apart from a BBC micro, no television, no comics, no games other than chess. The only available recreational activities were reading or spending time outdoors.

I did both in droves, often simultaneously, and it was bad enough that I'd often be caught reading a book under my desk in class. Mind, the school library only comprised "literature" - no kids books, Harry Potter was a gleam in jk's eye, it was Tolstoy, Homer, Proust, Euripides, Dickens, whatever a nine year old is supposed to read.

Come to think of it, reading in class was only punishable by the book being confiscated until the end of class. I remember in my miserable year of middle school in the U.S. being caught reading, and they not only confiscated the book but suspended me. It was a serious infraction in their eyes, as you were only allowed to read pre-approved books on school grounds.

Perhaps people don't read because educational systems for the most part actively discourage it. Initiatives which focus on getting kids to read more tend to be about appearances and metrics, not kids reading. They also tend to turn reading into this exotic, "other", task/chore in the minds of most due to shit like "you must read 500 words tonight" - I remember in 7th grade kids bursting into tears in response to that sort of thing, so well had their aversion therapy taken root.

Me, I'd ban kids from all except the most primitive digital technology until their teens, as well as all other sources of manufactured "fun". Reading is fun, but we have forgotten this. Now it has to be loud and sparkling and expensive, or it's just not fun for our crack-addled minds.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#135
post #130

Part of the problem is articles like this. There were perhaps five interesting sentences of content in that entire piece, and several hundred entirely redundant words and personal examples used only to set the tone. If modern writers have such disrespect for their audience, is it any wonder some of that audience hasn't the attention span to stick with it? Older, serious, and timeless literature requires deep concentr…

> If modern writers have such disrespect for their audience As opposed to whom, paid-by-the-word Dickens and his amazing menagerie of circumlocutions? ;-)

Touché!

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#136

Part of the problem is articles like this. There were perhaps five interesting sentences of content in that entire piece, and several hundred entirely redundant words and personal examples used only to set the tone. If modern writers have such disrespect for their audience, is it any wonder some of that audience hasn't the attention span to stick with it? Older, serious, and timeless literature requires deep concentr…

I completely agree with your point. It seems to me that a vast number of authors/writers (especially apparent in journalists here in Norway) fetishize their own voice, and become so enamored with it that they neglect their actual subject matter.

I don't want to read your irrelevant anectode or clever ironic remark, I want to learn about the subject you promised me.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#137

I've memorized a relevant XKCD just for this occasion, because it comes up so much: http://xkcd.com/1227/ > "Intellectual laziness and the hurry of the age have produced a craving for literary nips. The torbid brain... has grown too weak for sustained thought." – Israel Zangwill, The Bachelor's Club, 1891 I highly, highly recommend everybody read "The Information: How The Internet Gets Inside Us" by Adam Gopnik: http…

While it does appear that the perspective you're talking about has been repeated over and over, it's important to recognise that it's a perspective which applies to whatever time in which it was held. Therefore, it's relative. Maybe the past _was_ amazing and wonderful, and perhaps _that_ past's past was even _more_ amazing and wonderful. It's possible things _are_ getting worse and worse all the time, only society has failed to heed the "warning" of the doomsayers, leading even greater decline in "wonderfulness".

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#138
post #2

I've read over 500 fiction books and 2000+ non-fiction. I've read many of the big thick classics like Moby Dick, War & Peace, Infinite Jest. I've kept a spreadsheet of all the books I've read somewhat like Art Garfunkel[1] (of Simon & Garfunkel music duo). I've also read Nick Carr's "The Shallows"[2] and other authors about about the web's effect on attention span, distractions, etc. With all that said, I'm not convi…

I cannot count what I have read. Growing up (6-12) I had no access to digital tech, apart from a BBC micro, no television, no comics, no games other than chess. The only available recreational activities were reading or spending time outdoors. I did both in droves, often simultaneously, and it was bad enough that I'd often be caught reading a book under my desk in class. Mind, the school library only comprised "liter…

I remember along with one or two others being allowed to read on my own as we where so much faster/better at reading than our peers. I had a raeding age of 20 at 10

Thease days we would be forced into the Ofstead approved learning outcomes - or alternatively gotten rid of to game the schools figures

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#139
His points are mostly true, at least for some people, but I think we should go deeper than that. There are people who hate reading tech books and prefer to get the information in concise/shorter way through internet/SO. I am one of them, I have tried reading different software engineering books(widely recommended ones), but I just can't get into them. And yet I can easily digest an article about specific issue I have, try it out and if it works the article goes into my Pocket so I can check it again in the future, if something similar happens.

But give me a good fantasy novel, I will devour it. Wheel Of time (13 x 700 pages) was completed in 3 months. Chronicles of Amber? Done. ~60 books of Pratchett, a lot of them multiple times? Done. Tolkien? Done. There were countless of times, where I couldn't sleep before finishing a book, staying up to 4-5 am, when I usually go to sleep around 23-24:00. That's why I feel it is really hard to start a book, when you don't know what type of books you like. Some people enjoy fantasy/sci-fi/romance/action/prose and many more. Maybe something non-fiction? And I feel that schools should somehow help students discover their favourite authors and their favourite ganres.

Good article, but he could have given his point in one/third of the content length and it wouldn't have lost anything.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#140
Distraction might be a problem for some of us, but its important to remember that people are reading more books now than they ever have at any point in history, even if you only count paper books and especially if you count e-books.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-ne...

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/05/tech/gaming-gadgets/e-read...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/krystieyandoli/facts-that-prove-youn...

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