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What's happening to reading?

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Re: What's happening to reading?

#291

Post by landgenoot »

socalgal2 wrote: post #274
asimpletune wrote: post #95

Summarizers start with the default assumption that reading is an obstacle standing between the reader and some kind of reward. Even the idea that knowledge is something that is capable of being transferred is something that has to be assumed at one’s peril. On the other it's those of us who’ve read in the old school style, for fun, in private that are more convinced of the opposite than anyone. If anything getting su…

Doesn't it really depend on what we're reading? I generally wouldn't want to skip any words in a fiction novel. I would love to skip words in most self-help books that turn out to be 3 paragraphs of "the point" and 100-200 pages of fluff to get the book on the shelf. Another perfect example is nearly any online recipe with 25 screens of fluff at the top to get to the 1 screen recipe.

> Another perfect example is nearly any online recipe with 25 screens of fluff at the top to get to the 1 screen recipe.

These 25 screens of text are not for you, they are for Google.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#292

Post by soanvig »

MichaelRo wrote: post #190
ssttoo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience in neighboring Bulgaria. I remember my dad being upset with me for wasting my time reading “readable little books” (my best effort at approx. translation) meaning fiction, as opposed to proper textbooks.

Times have changed. My kid and the kids of every friend I know around me, have never opened a book on their own volition. Ever. Although they open the phone, tablet and laptop many times a day. And it's not like they're stupid or anything, just have no desire to read, never learned to associate reading with something pleasurable. But ... it shows. Like a friend has a kid who took the national exam that marks the end…

Ok, it does show. Old people language is more rich than young people language.

But if a kid asks you something using their language, you won't understand either. And given ABC test you would select wrong answer as well, despite reading 1000 books a year.

So it's not that simple. Times have changed, yes. Like they always do. My father's grandparents probably knew things and did things my father doesn't know (/ how to do). The grandparents could say: "Times have changed" as well.

So that is pointless although funny anecdote (IMHO ;) ). I don't know this romanian expression but "leaves for dogs" made thinking when I read that.

Also, take a note that reading itself is relatively new skill when we are talking about average person (75 years? Maybe, depending on the region). So if I were to engage into this topic I would not focus on books per se, but a communication (/ knowledge transfer) as a whole. I guess that would however get me (us) to entirely different conclusions, because stereotypically reading books is associated with something smart even if one reads harlequins exclusively.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#293

Post by xandrius »

lubujackson wrote: post #273
xandrius wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Present both and you'd have a pretty decent summary of the Odyssey.

And yet, the long form exists. Because reading (or in the case of the Odyssey, narrating/speaking the story) is experiential. Just as you can summarize a movie, the plot is very little of the point of WHY you would watch something. It might help you discuss elements of it, or determine if it sounds remotely interesting to you, but we experience art because it is, despite appearances, a succinct way of transmitting co…

Of course, you cannot summarise something which doesn't exist.

Even with a perfect summary, the source is still going to give something more. Nobody is arguing against that.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#294

Post by delusional »

asimpletune wrote: post #95

Summarizers start with the default assumption that reading is an obstacle standing between the reader and some kind of reward. Even the idea that knowledge is something that is capable of being transferred is something that has to be assumed at one’s peril. On the other it's those of us who’ve read in the old school style, for fun, in private that are more convinced of the opposite than anyone. If anything getting su…

> If anything getting summaries might be the worse of both worlds because one might be left with the false impression of understanding where there is none.

It's bad for the individual, but even worse for the collective. The AI summary reader isn't just convinced they understand, they also share that incorrect understanding in discussion. They effectively inject LLM slop into real life conversations and forget the subjectivity of reading.

This leads to what I consider more harmful. Discussions where the particiants themselves don't even believe in the stuff they are arguing. Where human beings, devoid of their own subjectivity, sling summaries and empty "facts" at each other. As if what 1984 textually said is important in any way beyond how you and I, the humans, connected with it.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#295

Post by zkmon »

Ofcourse, the publishers care about decline in reading. Readers care about their priorities in life, and how to distribute their attention across what matters most to them. If social networking matters most, it deserves more attention. Further, knowledge-seeking and cramming your memory with all sorts of facts is no longer a necessity.

Even in the past, Europeans were able to advance the knowledge and science only because their priorities and socio-political conditions allowed it, unlike other parts of the world which were always subjected to survival struggles.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#296

Post by rafaelmn »

smeej wrote: post #145

I'm not sure what's happening, but I am sure it isn't new. I had to learn the hard way 15 years ago that the average American adult cannot parse a full-page email in standard English. It seemed crazy to me at the time and seems crazy to me now, given that the average adult has completed elementary school, but most people are barely functionally literate at all. I don't expect you to believe me. It's a weird claim. Bu…

>I don't expect you to believe me. It's a weird claim. But walk into any average grocery store and hand someone a page out of a book and ask them to read it out loud to you. Many people are so aware they can't that they will refuse to try. Of the ones that do, you will struggle to find one who can read the text with anything like the fluidity or inflection they would use to speak the same words. If you give them time to prepare, they'll probably be able to get through it in a few minutes, but nobody's putting that kind of effort into a text-only email, even if it's important for work.

How is that relevant ? Reading out loud is not the same as reading ? I struggle to keep pace with reading out loud - because I am just not used to it. I do better now that I read to my kids, but I don't think I have reading problems - reading out loud is a skill that's on top of reading. Speech patterns, words you're used to pronouncing, etc. all make reading out loud more difficult than speaking or just reading IMO

Re: What's happening to reading?

#297

Post by rafaelmn »

DrammBA wrote: post #253
jraph wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> walk into any average grocery store and hand someone a page out of a book and ask them to read it out loud to you. Many people are so aware they can't that they will refuse to try. Of the ones that do, you will struggle to find one who can read the text with anything like the fluidity or inflection they would use to speak the same words Of course. I would likely find this situation very unsettling, if not stressful…

Do schools not ask kids to read out loud in class anymore? Any one of my classmates could read a page out loud fluently even if you stopped them randomly at the grocery store, and most of us are not even 30 yet.

I could write cursive when I was in school - my handwriting is shit because I write maybe 2-3 times a year since school - so 15 years now ? I went to recitation competitions (not sure what the exact English translation is) when I was in elementary school. I struggled reading children's books for my kids because I almost never read out loud anymore. Then I stopped struggling after I was doing it for a while.

So reading out loud is just a bad test of reading ability.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#298

Post by stogot »

beloch wrote: post #171
nemomarx wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you reading these articles at all, even enough to summarize them?

Click-bait. I'm not immune. I see something tantalizing and then I have to know. I've been burned by Hacker News more than once.

It clear when long form gets 7 upvotes in minutes and hits the top of hacker news . I avoid those now

Re: What's happening to reading?

#299

Post by [deleted] »

vivzkestrel wrote: post #283

Too many people writing is a problem they have not discussed in this article. Information is too diluted. I dont have the time to read 5000 books on forex trading. What I want is an LLM crunching all 5000 forex trading books into one book with very concise information. I could apply this idea to "Value investing", "Cookbooks", "Startups", "Business", "Finance" and so on. Does anyone here on HN have an LLM capable of…

[deleted]

Re: What's happening to reading?

#300

Post by jerf »

andoando wrote: post #255
photonthug wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First layer: Literally yes, there's fog everywhere. It gets around. Second layer: Interesting contrast of something clean and natural meeting something industrial and dirty. Voices, who is speaking, where from, and with what perspective? Themes of liminality / phase-change / obscured visibility / motion. Those tiers of shipping mean that some other stuff besides fog gets around. Third layer: Generalizing a bit, if na…

This seems like something way beyond reading comprehension though. Personally, and this is not a knock on you, but I don't find any of that imagined perception to be interesting/valuable. All this sentence is saying to me is that the author is trying to portray a dark, grim, barely visible image of the city.

In general, I think that's a perfectly valid view for you to take. It's not the only one, but it's a valid one.

In specific, this study was a test of reading comprehension, for English majors at a university level. They should be expected to do better with a complicated sentence then "it's really foggy, I guess". Just as I expect someone in film school to be able to give a more detailed review of a movie than "It was pretty good, you should go see it", even though that may be a perfectly acceptable review if a friend gives that to me.

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