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Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

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Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#121

Post by solumunus »

garciasn wrote: post #40

I read for pleasure; ~100 books a year on average. When I go anywhere, I am reading. My daughter informed me that the mothers of her teammates were outright making fun of me for having my 'nose buried in a book,' before every event. I asked her if they were making fun of everyone else for having their nose buried in their phones; she laughed and said they probably were not. Why is reading for fun something that's wor…

Well it’s just cope. It’s the same way in the UK where drinkers will sneer at non drinkers, or meat eaters at vegans. You will get criticised for losing weight or making dietary changes. People imagine that someone else may feel superior to them for making better choices, and they absolutely hate this.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#122

Post by solumunus »

eru wrote: post #109
TFNA wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these days Bill Hicks, the standup comedian dead for over three decades already, had a now-classic bit about being challenged for reading by a waitress. Reading has always been uncool to some people.

Funnily enough, smart phones (and previous feature phones with their SMS) have probably gotten more people into reading and writing for leisure than any other technology since the printing press. Granted, people are not doing any long form reading and writing on these devices, but they are reading and writing.

You’re underestimating how many people almost entirely just doom scroll videos, especially young people.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#123

Post by notabotiswear »

eru wrote: post #109
TFNA wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these days Bill Hicks, the standup comedian dead for over three decades already, had a now-classic bit about being challenged for reading by a waitress. Reading has always been uncool to some people.

Funnily enough, smart phones (and previous feature phones with their SMS) have probably gotten more people into reading and writing for leisure than any other technology since the printing press. Granted, people are not doing any long form reading and writing on these devices, but they are reading and writing.

For a brief period before instagrams and youtube became mainstream and tiktoks came along to decimate whatever was left.

This is an exaggeration, but I wouldn't rule out your average smartphone user reading less in an average commute than they would do just reading store signs as they pass...

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#124

Post by prettygood »

weedfroglozenge wrote: post #111

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.

This isn’t a bad thing? Kids nowadays have the attention span of puppies. It’s been shown extensively that doomscrolling, switching context every 30s isn’t good for the brain.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#125

Post by snayan »

an0malous wrote: post #49
larrik wrote: post #33

It's worse than this. I have kids in school. Our school system is one of the top in Connecticut, which is the quintessential "school" state (if any rich kid on TV goes away to school, it's probably to CT). These kids (all of them, not mine) can't really read. Not like when I was young. (I'm not even old! I graduated in the 2000's!) They certainly can't write. They have no stamina to do an essay or a test like when I…

Devil’s advocate: what’s the point? Is it important to have reading and writing skills if everything can be transcribed through AI? Or maybe it’s not directly important, but the ability to hold your attention on something for 30-60 minutes is? Is reading the best medium for education, or something more like Kahn Academy videos? I also wonder how the Montessori schools are doing, since I believe they focus less on rot…

I am not sure what to make of this devils advocate comment. Are you just throwing opposites at the wall? I genuinely don't know how to interpret the query about attention span?

Are you suggesting that a lower attention span has no impact? I don't know how I would learn things if my attention span was shit, or even sit with difficult problems or emotions and resolve them. Even just general productivity, which, sure there are some arguments about good vs bad productivity, but in general, any form of productivity will benefit from better attention span I think?

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#126

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

hirvi74 wrote: post #53

Why is reading for pleasure always placed on some sort of pedestal? I would argue that what is being consumed is more important than the medium of consumption. I am not trying to say there is little value in reading, but I have always found it odd that some forms of consumption are more coveted than others.

Reading connotes all sorts of hard-to-measure advantages and growth that nothing else even comes close to. And while there are works that are better and worse, no matter how lowly the thing is that is being read, that growth still accrues. You could have a child who read nothing but cereal boxes and truck stop restroom graffiti, and he'll be ahead of his classmates on every single thing you can score.

It's not the work, but the medium. Bad dimestore romance novels are therefor superior to someone watching one of those drivel tiktok soap opera things (no idea what they're called). The audio book might be the exact same story as the paperback, but the effect is not equivalent.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#127

Post by lukewrites »

andrew_lettuce wrote: post #117
raddan wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't this the problem though, books are no longer attractive with all the other options? How can we make books cool without pretending all this tech didn't exist?

I think the content of many books is much cooler than the crap on my timelines. There’s just higher entropy (or activation energy?) to get the book picked up and opened vs the serotonin lever in our pockets.

I’ve just strived to read like hell to my kids and make reading one of their most fun things around. Pretty much all we read is stuff they like, even if I hate it (I’m looking at you, Pokemon novels). If they like an author (in our house we love Daniel Pinkwater) I will go out of my way to find that authors books. We write to authors, we talk about what we read (somehow I serialised a retelling of Killing Commendatore), my 8 yo listens to my audiobooks in the car with me, we are frickin bookworms.

And of course they still play Minecraft and animal crossing. It’s just that picking up a book is one of their default go-tos, and I think that’s enough. They’re building the habit and the understanding of what reading is about, and if we keep that up they will be ok.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#128

Post by solumunus »

andrew_lettuce wrote: post #117
raddan wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't this the problem though, books are no longer attractive with all the other options? How can we make books cool without pretending all this tech didn't exist?

We can’t, it’s simply too addictive in comparison. It produces more dopamine, more quickly and consistently and there’s no way books will ever compete. Really it’s not even technology that is the problem, it’s specifically just algorithmic driven social media. We have to actively avoid the addictive algorithms and it’s really difficult.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#130

Post by somenameforme »

andrew_lettuce wrote: post #114
ambicapter wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is easy when you've done a lot of it, that's how the brain works.

That's coasting though, or at best flow. Neither state makes you better. The entire point of making something easy is to be able to build on it.

I don't think this is accurate. In basically every single game or sport with measurable outcomes, doing things are relatively simple to you (and often enjoyable) endlessly - drives improvement.

If you want to make the argument that it's muscle memory in e.g. shooting freethrows in basketball, then you can see the exact same thing in doing chess tactical puzzles. There's even one successful learning method called the Woodpecker Method where you endlessly repeat over the same series of tactics working to get the time it takes you to do them down to essentially instantaneous. And it works excellently for improvement, and I obviously don't just mean improvement at doing that set of tactics.

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