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Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

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Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#131

Post by gambiting »

cogman10 wrote: post #117
gambiting wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Consider this, do you use shorthand? I have no idea how to write shorthand. I assume you know how to write cursive, so no I don't think the reasons are the same.

You could learn it. It would take some effort but it's not insurmountable and it's inarguably superior to cursive in terms of effort to write. I can't write legible cursive. To do that would take time, effort, and practice. Much like it'd take that to learn shorthand. That's my point. You and I write the way we do because writing in other ways would take more effort than we want to spend.

Well, fair. Maybe I should learn shorthand.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#132

Post by delichon »

impossiblefork wrote: post #130
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #92

Plausibly some kids might still be reading entire novels worth of text online on the regular. Think of all the massive fanfic archives (Including original fics) Lots of fanfic authors have fans of their own, and those have got to be coming from somewhere. It doesn't need to be in dead tree format. It doesn't need to be famous authors. Just so long as they read! For long form original see eg: * The last angel https://…

Fanfic reading is not like novel reading in that you don't need to really understand new, unfamiliar characters though. Thus it can tend to become limiting; and I say this as someone who actually does enjoy fanfiction.

> Fanfic reading is not like novel reading in that you don't need to really understand new, unfamiliar characters though.

So the Lord of the Rings series counts as one book? I'd believe diminishing returns, but not one and done.

Also, I thought that Yudkowsky's HPMOR fanfic had more interesting ideas than the whole Rowling series, which I like a lot.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#133

Post by TitaRusell »

idle_zealot wrote: post #37
stevewodil wrote: post #4

I don’t know if this matters much. When I was in school it was rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I’m sure with LLMs now it’s less. I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.

> I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives The problem is that if you don't force them, they never actually become literate enough to discover that reading is fun later in life.

If the purpose is reading then we let kids read books that they like.

I can read a 1000 page history book but after 50 pages of Dutch literature I want to throw it in the garbage bin. High school KILLS reading. Few survive.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#134

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

techblueberry wrote: post #54
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of school is a mix between providing childcare, and making sure most of society have a largely overlapping common upbringing experience. We hear that we encourage diversity - but only of superficial stuff like sexual orientation or skin color. We don't want people that think too differently. This is why I, despite my deep appreciation for the pursuit of knowledge and having spent a significant chunk of my…

I’m curious - do you think you’re an independent thinker? Do you think it’s a competitive advantage? What does thinking differently mean? It seems like a thing people say because it sounds good without really interrogating it. I objectively find myself to be an independent thinker, and I mostly find it distracting. I could be much more functional to society/work/relationships if I spent more time thinking about the k…

I think I'm an independent thinker. One symptom is that I repeatedly find myself observing that other people do things because they're copying other people. This is one symptom, but there's more.

> Do you think it’s a competitive advantage

> I could be much more functional to society/work/relationships

> most successful people in society, are successful _because_ they have mainstream thought patterns

Don't care, I'm not optimizing for being competitive, being successful, or any of the other things you mentioned.

See, another symptom of being an independent thinker: I've thought about it on my own and I've concluded I'm not interested in your targets.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#135

Post by TitaRusell »

bgbntty2 wrote: post #59
stevewodil wrote: post #4

I don’t know if this matters much. When I was in school it was rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I’m sure with LLMs now it’s less. I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.

I think school ruined fiction books for me. I had to read long boring books about stories that didn't interest me, with useless sentences describing what the scene looked like or what someone had for dinner. Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't have enough context to make them understandable. Some books even used outdated words and phrases. Maybe if I wasn't forced to read a book in an outdated lan…

It is interesting how everyone parrots that art is important when the vast majority of the population will never actually engage with it.

Opera? Ballet? Literature? Poetry? Classical music? Modern art?

Do the numbers it seems most people can do without them and still be functional.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#136

Post by barbazoo »

tyleo wrote: post #40

Comments here are very strange, “Reading books should go the way of cursive! Education is more like childcare anyways.” It’s bizarre stuff to say. What would you have the education system do? Put iPads in front of kids all day?

Let the market solve it. If the market requires educated adults the market will create that environment or something, answer is probably private schools. I assume they’d say something like that.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#137

Post by eimrine »

epolanski wrote: post #89
eimrine wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what industries?

Any job position requiring intelligence and nuance which unavoidably stems from informing yourself.

But the same will inevitably make you hating the capitalism which eventually makes you not better candidate on the market but worse.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#138

Post by eimrine »

squigz wrote: post #114
eimrine wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure there are lots of brainrot distractions available to kids today Take apart the distractions per se, how is it possible to read book for a kid in 2025 at all? Reading thick books requires having some device with no distructions. In my young ages all computers and all smartphones used to have no distructions, but now all computers (except some Linux distros) used to be bombarded with distructions in such a way t…

> Take apart the distractions per se, how is it possible to read book for a kid in 2025 at all? Literally buy books? What about ereaders? Install adblockers and de-shittify your OS? I don't have the problems you seem to have, and I'm on Windows.

Paper books are too hard to sell after you have read it.

Ereaders can not render PDF/DJVU with formulas. My reading list has nothing able to be read from that kind of devices.

Installing some more proprietary code will not lead to "deshittifying" some existing proprietary code. You just add 1 guy more of your dependances. You even can not do this once for whole life of the device. So many time perfect for reading goes inte nowhere with Woedows OS.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#139

Post by RajT88 »

anon7000 wrote: post #5
stevewodil wrote: post #4

I don’t know if this matters much. When I was in school it was rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I’m sure with LLMs now it’s less. I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.

It’s odd, I read ravenously as a kid/teen, as did my siblings. You need to read what you enjoy, and for it to not be forced. (For example, summer reading at the library gave out prizes kids cared about for reading books.) Plus, we didn’t have access to much digital media like TV/video games (though it was the early 2010s) because my parents were strict, so books were a solid source of entertainment.

I too read ravenously as a kid. Strangely, in the 90's we were never assigned full books in English classes, just short stories or chapters.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#140

Post by squigz »

eimrine wrote: post #138
squigz wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take apart the distractions per se, how is it possible to read book for a kid in 2025 at all? Literally buy books? What about ereaders? Install adblockers and de-shittify your OS? I don't have the problems you seem to have, and I'm on Windows.

Paper books are too hard to sell after you have read it. Ereaders can not render PDF/DJVU with formulas. My reading list has nothing able to be read from that kind of devices. Installing some more proprietary code will not lead to "deshittifying" some existing proprietary code. You just add 1 guy more of your dependances. You even can not do this once for whole life of the device. So many time perfect for reading goe…

> Paper books are too hard to sell after you have read it.

Still accomplishes the goal of allowing kids to read a book.

> Ereaders can not render PDF/DJVU with formulas. My reading list has nothing able to be read from that kind of devices.

Kids don't usually have these sort of requirements with their reading lists. Also have you looked into KOReader[1], which has support for djvu it looks like?

> Installing some more proprietary code will not lead to "deshittifying" some existing proprietary code. You just add 1 guy more of your dependances. You even can not do this once for whole life of the device. So many time perfect for reading goes inte nowhere with Woedows OS.

Firstly, I wasn't suggesting installing more proprietary code. Not sure where you got that from. Most scripts/guides I've seen that help disable the more intrusive/annoying parts of Windows are FOSS.

Secondly, then install Linux and only use FOSS, for which there are many options to read books with?

[1] https://koreader.rocks/

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