111–120 of 350 posts
Books were entertainment when that's all the world offered. Now whenever reading gets mentioned online, it's a "smarter way" to consume entertainment. Readers always give off a smug aura.
Technology has come along and with that visuals, audio, engagement.
The Tiktok Algorithm is this generation's Shakespeare. This isn't a bad thing.
Are we surprised? Books were entertainment when that's all the world offered. Now whenever reading gets mentioned online, it's a "smarter way" to consume entertainment. Readers always give off a smug aura. Technology has come along and with that visuals, audio, engagement. The Tiktok Algorithm is this generation's Shakespeare. This isn't a bad thing.
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The point is that "doing hard things" is required to be a successful adult. Meanwhile, the bar for what constitutes a "hard thing" is dropping fast.
The bar isn’t dropping, it’s shifting.
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When I used to read for pleasure, I did it because it was pleasurable. Not because it would be the hard thing. It was fun and easy. What this particular chain of thoughts shows is that adults don't read for pleasure either, they associate it with an uncomfortable hard thing one should to do "build character".
Everything is easy when you've done a lot of it, that's how the brain works.
We decided to cut device usage way down - they get 1 hour in the morning to play whatever games they want on computer, tablet, console. Then they get 1 hour before bed to watch TV. The rest of the day, no devices. We are homeschooled so this is a LOT of free time.
After a few weeks, they're now: blasting through books daily (to the point where they forgot their own TV time, which used to be sacred), playing board games with us more frequently, asking to do things outside like learning to ride bikes (which they've previously shied away from), writing their own comic books and board games on paper, and overall just being creative through the day and entertaining themselves.
It's such a huge difference. It is the devices. It's 100% the devices.
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Herd mentality, anti-intellectual culture, poor reading skills, and ADHD are widespread issues. Those mothers sound lame, and ultimately the joke's on them. Reading is awesome, and making fun of someone for it just shows what basic bitches they are.
Hey, come on... I have ADHD and love reading. No need to use that as a bludgeon. It's unnecessary...
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One thing that helped in our house was making books unavoidable. We keep paperbacks lying around in every room. It sounds silly, but there’s a kind of “cover gravity” and guilt that pulls the kids ( and me) back into a book when a book is just sitting there gathering dust.
My parents had a rule where the default answer when I asked them to buy me things was no—except for books. Combined with the fact that we lived in the middle of nowhere and did not have cable TV, books were by far the most appealing thing around.
This is a result of living in homes where parents neither read to children nor model reading for pleasure. Thanks to the various waves of “education reform”, there is less literature on offer and less time for pleasure reading. However, if you’re reading them exciting things at home (and telling them about the exciting stuff you’re reading), they will love to read.
It's not necessarily that simple. Both I and my wife read, almost every week I read my daughter passages I've come across in my books, we have bookshelves in every room. We read to our younger children and they enjoy being read to. I told my daughter that when I was her age I liked to read Animorphs, and girls were reading Babysitter's Club. She brought home these books from the school library and... they were graphi…
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Hey, come on... I have ADHD and love reading. No need to use that as a bludgeon. It's unnecessary...
I didn't read it that way, I thought the GP was listing it as one of the newer challenges to getting kids (and adults!) to read. IMO it doesn't prevent you from loving to read, but it does make it harder.
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The point is that "doing hard things" is required to be a successful adult. Meanwhile, the bar for what constitutes a "hard thing" is dropping fast.
When I used to read for pleasure, I did it because it was pleasurable. Not because it would be the hard thing. It was fun and easy. What this particular chain of thoughts shows is that adults don't read for pleasure either, they associate it with an uncomfortable hard thing one should to do "build character".