Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What's happening to reading?

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 334 posts

Re: What's happening to reading?

#41

Post by troad »

easterncalculus wrote: post #11

One widely discussed study, for instance, judges students on their ability to parse the muddy and semantically tortuous opening of “Bleak House”; this is a little like assessing swimmers on their ability to cross fifty yards of molasses. WTF. Asking university English students to read a book is not asking swimmers to go through molasses.

Strong agree, and honestly I'm kind of shocked.

If an adult English speaker cannot understand the opening of Bleak House - quotes given elsewhere in this thread - they are effectively unable to access the bulk of English literature.

This is not someone who belongs in a university English course, this is someone in need of remedial English lessons.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#42

Post by jcranmer »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #33
jasonthorsness wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it “London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizz…

It's moderately dense literature, as muddy and gloomy as the portrayal of london, but I would expect the majority of people to be able to read this?

I suspect a majority of the population has no idea what "Michaelmas term" is. And there's some other phrases in there that require some familiarity with things commonplace in the 19th century that aren't so in the 21st century.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#43

Post by KPGv2 »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #33
jasonthorsness wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it “London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizz…

It's moderately dense literature, as muddy and gloomy as the portrayal of london, but I would expect the majority of people to be able to read this?

As would I. It actually feels very "chat-ish." Two-word thoughts as sentences, etc.

Like how I text. To my wife. Whenever we're on our computers in different locations. No need to edit. She gets it. So do you.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#44

Post by bee_rider »

nottorp wrote: post #6
xphilter wrote: post #4

I can’t read it (lol) due to paywall, but 100% it’s because we stopped teaching kids how to read. But good luck trying to hold public schools accountable! https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/podcasts/the-daily/readin...

The article is about "AI" not people stopping reading even before "AI". Someone trying to jump on the bandwagon...

Oh dang, we were all worried about time traveling AI, right?

Re: What's happening to reading?

#45

Post by mschild »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #33
jasonthorsness wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it “London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizz…

It's moderately dense literature, as muddy and gloomy as the portrayal of london, but I would expect the majority of people to be able to read this?

Anecdata: I found most people don't have an issue with the vocabulary itself but rather their attention spans. From what I've experienced from family members and friends, the younger ones seem to get exasperated by any longer amount of text that isn't in very simple English language.

A friend told me his daughter was one of the few that could actually sit through a whole reading session in her 2nd grade class. And these are mostly pick and choose books so not really forced literature they don't enjoy.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#46

Post by Teever »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #33
jasonthorsness wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it “London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizz…

It's moderately dense literature, as muddy and gloomy as the portrayal of london, but I would expect the majority of people to be able to read this?

I think it's very reasonable to expect that a majority (if not all) of university students to be able to read this but certainly not the general public.

You have unrealistic expectations of the average person's ability to read complex literature and the vocabulary necessary to parse this piece of text.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#47

Post by Spivak »

easterncalculus wrote: post #11

One widely discussed study, for instance, judges students on their ability to parse the muddy and semantically tortuous opening of “Bleak House”; this is a little like assessing swimmers on their ability to cross fifty yards of molasses. WTF. Asking university English students to read a book is not asking swimmers to go through molasses.

It really is, students were asked to read a passage in what could be reasonably called a dialect of English that they don't read, write, or speak; that makes reference and uses turns of phrase that would be well-understood by readers at the time but are archaic to a modern reader.

If you did that same exact passage but had someone transliterate it into modern English like "foot-passengers" -> "pedestrians" I bet the results would be perfectly acceptable. Why would you test literacy, a very practical skill, using anything other than contemporary language, the kind that they actually use in their day to day?

Re: What's happening to reading?

#49

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

jasonthorsness wrote: post #26
anzumitsu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the preface, the study in question dealt with the opening of Chapter 1

I like it “London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizz…

Short sentences, too. Some people like to ramble on for quite a few lines before reaching for a period.

Re: What's happening to reading?

#50

Post by debesyla »

chrisweekly wrote: post #20
retskrad wrote: post #17

Reading text is a recent phenomenon and the brain doesn't have hardware acceleration. I'm not surprised that less and less people read long form text. Becoming an intermediate reader is exhausting when you didn’t grow up with books. After 500 hours, I can only navigate titles like The Selfish Gene with middling comprehension. Black text on white background feels flat and dopamine free, yet the grind itself becomes th…

Your comment is very well-written, which is usually a sign of someone highly literate and well-read. I'm very curious about your story as an "intermediate reader" with "500 hours" of reading under your belt. TIA for any further details you're willing to share.

I wonder how can one even calculate time spent reading in hours. Most of reading is, after all, thinking (and reminiscing) about what you read...

I think maybe OP was using some obscure meme format. Or if it was genuine I am also interested how did the 500 hours came upon.

Post reply on HN