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Why can’t we read anymore?

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Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#191

Post by walljm »

Retra wrote: post #26
jasode wrote: 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…

Whenever I real long-form books, my mind will occasionally wander into other areas, while my eyes keep reading on. I'll have to continually go back and re-read what I feel like I've just read. This isn't just an internet-fueled lack of attention, it's how I've always read, and how I image most people read most of the time. The difference is with a website, you can go investigate your immediate thoughts rather than co…

"I'll have to continually go back and re-read what I feel like I've just read. "

This happens to me sometimes, but its rare and usually means I'm tired or not interested in the subject matter. If I'm interested I'm glued to the page and won't break concentration for hours.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#192

Post by walljm »

sukilot wrote: post #56
noir_lord wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for me, when I read I get lost in the book and it gets dark outside, the cats come and sleep on me, the street lights go on and I look up at 10pm and I've read half a novel. It's a sense of peace I get from few other things in life.

This, or even watching a slow paced movie (the kind more common before 1990) is incredibly refreshing break from the modern distraction filled world.

I love a well paced but slow film... some of them feel almost dream like, like poetry.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#193

Post by walljm »

nsomaru wrote: post #49
Retra wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm no freak of nature, either.

Wouldn't say it's about being 'normal' or a 'freak.' If you haven't cultivated the habit of reading, it's not effortless (like most things). When things aren't effortless (or close thereto), its easy for an undisciplined mind to wander. If it's something that you value, you will do it enough that it becomes effortless. Perhaps the author missed that point?

Though your point about cultivating the discipline is applicable, not all brains process data the same way, and its possible the posters habit is a factor of biology not effort.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#194

Post by Tycho »

jmccree wrote: post #80
sukilot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, or even watching a slow paced movie (the kind more common before 1990) is incredibly refreshing break from the modern distraction filled world.

As I've gotten older and have less free time and there's so much more content out there, one practice I've come to accept is reading the wikipedia page and plot synopsis for a book/movie before starting watching something. In the same way I read HN comments before deciding whether to read the original article often times. Before wikipedia I would read the last chapters of books first. I'm more worried about my time b…

But how does just reading the synopsis indicate if something is any good? Wouldn't you be better just looking at the IMDB score? Or are you looking out to avoid things with 'dumb' endings?

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#195

Post by undersuit »

Singletoned wrote: post #151
Schwolop wrote: post #122

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…

My father once described Malcolm Gladwell as "that man who writes books that should be essays". I think that also sums up my feelings about this. A particular bugbear of mine is when a non-fiction article starts by describing the weather or somesuch. If the opening line is "It was a warm summer's day when Joshua first..." then I just give up then and there. There's no glory in padding.

Was it padding? In ASOIAF the description of the scene is one of the only hints George R.R. Martin gives us of when a chapter happens. The moon and a comet provide a number of time references in the books.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#196

Post by digi_owl »

_asummers wrote: post #24
woah wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer a long scroll of text. Less distraction. Books are paginated arbitrarily, and it's quite a large aspect of the experience to be left up to random chance.

I agree. Having a scrollbar as a percentage completion indicator is a very nice thing. I can also highlight the text on the page where I was at in the likely event I get distracted and have to move on to something else. At this point, I do this out of habit on any article longer than a few paragraphs. Side note, if your site pops up a stupid SHARE THIS ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER when someone highlights text, I most like…

After posting the initial comment i found a most interesting Firefox extension.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/column-reader...

It allows me to single out the main text of a site, and break it into screen height sized columns. These can then be paged through much like a book.

Seems to make it much easier for me at least to get through a long article without jumping between paragraphs.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#197

Post by will_work4tears »

officemonkey wrote: post #185
will_work4tears wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logging what you read is, oddly enough, a new idea for me. One I'll have to seriously consider doing. In 2003 I started college, and an exercise in a class I had we had to tell two truths and one falsehood and let the class guess the falsehood. I don't remember what the falsehood was or the other truth, but the truth one that everybody thought was the falsehood was that I had read over 2000 books. I only know that I…

10 books/yr x 20 years = 200, not 2,000. Setting up a goodreads account is simplicity itself. And since it's owned by Amazon, you can import all your books with a click. There's also a bookmarklet that "Adds book to Goodreads" from the Amazon page. Once you get used to logging progress and marking completed books, you will really see the pages and books mount up.

Oops, you are right. I'd say I hadn't had my coffee yet when I wrote that, but even that's not a good excuse. How embarassing. 100 books does seem right though, I thought the 10 seemed a little too light.

I set up an account yesterday and did like that Amazon import feature. I wish It imported all the books you read with Kindle Unlimited though. Thanks for the heads up with the bookmarklet, I'll check it out.

Re: Why can’t we read anymore?

#198

Post by tomjen3 »

We can. I set a simple goal of reading 100 pages a week and was stuggling with reaching that number for quite some time. Then I started to read books that were better written and the pages started to fly by (and it is not exactly that the books were easier - The Strategy of Conflict is an academic book written by an academic but it is still well written).

My guess is that the same is the case for others, which makes for a simple solution: don't read badly written books.

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