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It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

theatlantic.com

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Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#331

Post by cjpearson »

xmcp123 wrote: post #95
Diogenesian wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that before, you needed to read huge swaths of information to find/know the relevant information. Now you don’t. > The density of useful information I gather from places like Wikipedia, even long form articles is substantially higher than I got reading non-fiction. You're in good company. Sam Bankman-Freid: I would never read a book. I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever wo…

I do read huge swaths of information, just directly relevant to the questions that I have, and the things required to understand that information. Don’t have to read a book on every US president to understand what happened during the Reagan administration. And if I’m primarily interested in the Cold War, I can focus on that subject and skip out on when Reagan was governor of California, or how he met his wife. More t…

Your example is an interesting one, as the Reagan administration is a broad topic with many books covering just a small slice. If you are solely interested in the foreign policy of Reagan, you could find books on Iran-Contra, SDI, Grenada, the American response to the Soviet-Afghan war, the Reykjavik Summit etc.

Wikipedia is a great resource and I use it a lot, but it is far from a complete solution for topics with any depth. If I read an article on a president, I'll get a brief overview of their administration as well as a few interesting facts and could probably answer a jeopardy question about them, but I would not claim a strong understanding.

I will agree that not every bit of information can be found in a book, but the ability to comprehend book-level arguments and ideas is critical. They are a necessary, but not sufficient component of learning.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#332

Post by tim333 »

functionmouse wrote: post #73
tomwheeler wrote: post #5

[flagged]

It's true; I also started reading the comments before clicking the article. Show of hands?

Yeah pretty much here. I assumed it would be along the lines that reading social media isn't reading and only pretentious novels count.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#333

Post by dtagames »

_doctor_love wrote: post #21

We were in an age of reading? I gave up about 10 years ago on people as readers. I have recommended so many books and articles to software people over the years and it's honestly depressing how many people have told me they don't like to read. Like...you're a programmer? And you don't like to read? I assumed that people who enjoy software would be into intellectual stimulation but I've learned that this is wrong. Mor…

Just yesterday, someone on LinkedIn wanted to improve her vibe-coded software, which she plans to charge money for.

I recommended an article of mine with a 34 minute read time. When she saw that in the header, she submitted my article to an AI for summary and complained that she wasn't going to spend 34 minutes (on learning programming).

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#334

Post by uncivilized »

smith7018 wrote: post #25
lp4v4n wrote: post #23

It's been my impression that classic literature is going the same way as painting and other forms of high art. It was certainly a great display of human intellectual prowess and artistic capacity in bygone times when the world moved at a much slower pace, but who has the time and the energy to read a long novel today? Even cinema is dying and nobody seems to care that much.

Many people still read novels. I live in NYC and see numerous people read books and Kindles every day on the train. > Even cinema is dying and nobody seems to care that much It's being replaced with an even longer form of visual media; the mini series. Stories that used to be told in an hour and a half are now being told in 8 hour-long segments

You’ve drawn the wrong conclusion. People still read on the train because there is rarely phone signal when underground. If phones were internet capable during commutes, you’d see a lot less books.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#335

Post by dtagames »

throw4847285 wrote: post #113
breezybottom wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? What's so important about novels? They're a relatively recent innovation in literature.

I see that pedantry is more intellectually stimulating than either programming or reading!

Who will write the tool that scores HN threads by the number of information-carrying posts versus those that are completely irrelevant, off topic, personal rants, ad hominem, etc?

I'd bet that after a certain level of attention, the majority of comments are of that no useful information kind.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#336

Post by shimman »

dag100 wrote: post #262
shimman wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is definitely a massive slight. If it was any other book I'd buy it, but when you read terms like "horrorshow," or "platty", or "droogs" in the first few paragraphs it's not hard to see why one would look up words. Also who describes "A Clockwork Orange" as old english? There has to be a phrase for journalists that a conclusion ready in hand but their work is just finding scant/nonexistent evidence proving…

Could the student really not infer the meanings of those words from context? I don't think Burgess expected his readers to have a working knowledge of Russian.

Granted I don't know the age of the student, but I had a friend that read "A Clockwork Orange" in 8th grade. They shared the book with me and I had an extremely hard time reading it, it wasn't until I started college that I could appreciate + understand the story better. Definitely lucked out in reading an edition that had a glossary in the front.

I can totally see how a modern student today would struggle with reading complicated books.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#337

Post by Izkata »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #114
apparent wrote: post #16

> Adult-literacy scores have also dropped: Nearly 30 percent of American adults cannot paraphrase or make inferences from a multipage text. In 2017, that number was less than 20 percent. Shrinking the passages on the SAT from full-page to a few sentences will exacerbate this trend.

Hmm. If someone knew the number of graduates from 2017 to 2026, they could estimate what fraction of them could paraphrase and make inferences. My stab at it: Looks like about 36 million high school graduates from 2017 to 2026. The US population is about 350 million. 20% of 350 million is 70 million, so 70 million people couldn't paraphrase in 2017. 30% is 105 million, so 105 million people couldn't in 2026. That mea…

Here's how those numbers are plausible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_cueing

Each of these quotes is from a different part of that Wikipedia page:

> It involves guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words based on context clues, as opposed to phonics, the more traditional method of sounding out words.

> Three cueing methods have been criticized for misunderstanding how reading is acquired and for potentially damaging children's reading abilities over the long term.

> In response to the example of children failing to distinguish between "pony" and "horse", Goodman argued that it was irrelevant whether children understood the specific word, as "pony" and "horse" are similar concepts, and a reader failing to distinguish between them would still understand the meaning of the story as a whole.

> Some researchers and educators have attributed part of three cueing's popularity in classrooms to its ease of teaching relative to phonics.

> As of 2020, an estimated 75% of American teachers used three cueing.

> Over 12 states have explicitly banned educators from teaching three cueing. A lawsuit was filed by families in Massachusetts whose children had been taught three cueing; one of the plaintiffs stated that her son had difficulty reading once classroom materials transitioned into using chapter books.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#338

Post by _doctor_love »

feoren wrote: post #289
_doctor_love wrote: post #21

We were in an age of reading? I gave up about 10 years ago on people as readers. I have recommended so many books and articles to software people over the years and it's honestly depressing how many people have told me they don't like to read. Like...you're a programmer? And you don't like to read? I assumed that people who enjoy software would be into intellectual stimulation but I've learned that this is wrong. Mor…

> you don't like to read? I assumed that people who enjoy software would be into intellectual stimulation but I've learned that this is wrong. So HN is OK with being extremely condescending toward others as long as it's a general group of others, not a specific HN user? Just imagine this sentence with almost any other activity: "You don't like to run? I would have assumed that people who enjoy physical activity would…

Brother, I took a look at your comment history and I think you're projecting.

I also noticed on your profile that you've submitted literally nothing to this site but have made lots of comments, usually negative ones.

To paraphrase Justified: if you met an arrogant person in the morning, you met an arrogant person in the morning. If you meet arrogant people all day...

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#339

Post by Izkata »

autoexec wrote: post #185
tsunamifury wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddy, I just laid out the exact numbers that show less people go to cinema by almost half. The defintion of dying. And beyond that if you go deeper, the revenue growth is almost entirely attribured to higher prices in ticket sales while attendance in real terms continues to decline. What are you struggling with here?

The number of people who buy tickets to sit in theater to watch movies is not a good measure of people's interest in watching movies or the success of the medium. Most people are streaming films and while streaming services continue to suck at very basic things you'd expect from a media player they're still very popular.

They did say "cinema" all the way up this comment chain, not "movies". They're not the same thing and it does refer to sitting in theaters.

Re: It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history

#340

Post by Izkata »

dash2 wrote: post #142
ramijames wrote: post #140

My kids are active, voracious readers. At least one book (500-700 pages) a week. It feels like one of the only things that I've really done right as a parent.

How did you do it?

I learned to read younger than most, and could read well, but never really liked it. My parents tried the things in the other replies you got, but none of it actually worked (reading to me in particular my mom is convinced did it, but she never realized I was mostly ignoring her and watching other kids play).

I actually remember specifically what it was: finding this book in the impulse-buy section of our local Walgreens when waiting at the checkout line at about 9 or 10 years old: https://animorphs.fandom.com/wiki/The_Forgotten

For some reason I was big into animals, so that cover really caught my eye. Up until that point I knew almost nothing about sci-fi, so this and the rest of the series was basically my introduction to the genre, which is still the majority of what I read.

So my basic advice is a bit vague but: find a book on a topic they'd like, with a relevant cover, and somehow position it so they discover it and curiosity takes over. Don't push it on them, they'll probably just assume it's something you like instead of something they'd like (which was the case for almost everything before I discovered sci-fi).

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