46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023 • Hacker News Board

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#61

Post by Swizec » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

arnaudsm wrote: post #22

Extropy_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most of the great intellectual works exist in these "legacy form factors."

Of the past yes, but what about the present and future?

The depth of a book is vastly different than the 10min youtube video summarizing said book. I’ve tried both modern and legacy form factors and honestly I’m on camp book more and more as the years go on.

The modern stuff feels like total fluff compared to a book, which in turn feel like total fluff compared to the academic papers it is based on. These days I would rather spend 2 hours reading a good book or paper than 10 minutes watching an engagement-optimized edutainment video.

And for the really good stuff you have to go even more legacy – conversation with an expert. A medium older even than books. That’s where you get the stuff that hasn’t made it into papers yet, let alone the downstream half-digested edutainment stuff.

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#62

Post by pb7 » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

olddustytrail wrote: post #41

arnaudsm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the past yes, but what about the present and future?

Well, can you name a computer game that is a great artistic work? There are many that are good , but I can't say there are any that are on a par with, say, "The Lord of the Rings" or "War and Peace" or "1984". I'd love to hear of one that was though.

There are so many.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one great artistic work. If you haven't played it, you haven't experienced the peak of a massive wildly recognized medium. Last of Us (the show) was essentially copied verbatim from the video game, scene for scene.

On the entire opposite side of the complexity spectrum, both Limbo and Inside are great artistic works.

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#63

Post by guitarbill » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

olddustytrail wrote: post #41

arnaudsm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the past yes, but what about the present and future?

Well, can you name a computer game that is a great artistic work? There are many that are good , but I can't say there are any that are on a par with, say, "The Lord of the Rings" or "War and Peace" or "1984". I'd love to hear of one that was though.

Come on, that's a lame argument and completely subjective.

What makes LotR a "great artistic work"? What makes Stardew Valley not a "great artistic work"?

Just like some books, films, or other art can resonate and have a profound impact on a person, so can video games.

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#64

Post by ggpsv » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:53 PM UTC

voidfunc wrote: post #30

Extropy_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most of the great intellectual works exist in these "legacy form factors."

I can read a quick Wikipedia article and get the gist of them pretty quickly then what's the point? If you enjoy reading that's one thing but there's not much point otherwise.

Sorry but isn't this disingenuous?

Reading a summary of the book in Wikipedia/Blinkist/ChatGPT is definitely not the same as the reading book.

Sure, you may grasp at the central idea or argument superficially, but to understand it fully, with its caveats and nuances, and overarching context?

You can regurgitate but not assimilate.

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#65

Post by okamiueru » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:53 PM UTC

fisherjeff wrote: post #24

okamiueru wrote: post #6

A lot higher than what I had thought. If only around 20% of Americans read a book, any book , within the ages 18-29, maybe the ranges outside of it make up for it?

Crosstabs are here - it’s surprisingly consistent across age groups: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor...

It very much contradicts what I said earlier. Don't remember the source. The only difference is that this also includes listening to audio-books. 53% in 2023, for 18-29 year-old, according to your source. Thanks for the correction.

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#66

Post by ffgjgf1 » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:53 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #54

Extropy_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most of the great intellectual works exist in these "legacy form factors."

But a lot of modern knowledge is in a form of youtube videos and a lot of trash is in a form of cheap airport-kiosk books.

> knowledge is in a form of youtube videos

Hardly it almost always a shortened more approachable summary of something described in a book. Also (IMHO) videos are a horrible format for transferring knowledge, it’s slow AF compared to reading and impossible to search, you have to consume it mostly sequentially

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#67

Post by rockinghigh » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:53 PM UTC

hipadev23 wrote: post #53

arnaudsm wrote: post #8

Why do we obsess so much over legacy form factors? Watching movies, listening to 2h conference talks, playing a 60h narrative videogame, and reading scientific papers in PDF may not be as noble, but they are equally meaningful to me.

> reading scientific papers Based on recent HN threads, sounds like a large percentage of scientific papers are pure fiction. At least books on Goodreads have public reviews and a simple star rating. Does similar exist for scientific papers?

Published papers have to go through a reviewing process. You can see peer review feedback here: https://openreview.net

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#68

Post by cm2187 » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:53 PM UTC

arnaudsm wrote: post #8

Why do we obsess so much over legacy form factors? Watching movies, listening to 2h conference talks, playing a 60h narrative videogame, and reading scientific papers in PDF may not be as noble, but they are equally meaningful to me.

or simply reading wikipedia articles.

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#69

Post by arnaudsm » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

olddustytrail wrote: post #41

arnaudsm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the past yes, but what about the present and future?

Well, can you name a computer game that is a great artistic work? There are many that are good , but I can't say there are any that are on a par with, say, "The Lord of the Rings" or "War and Peace" or "1984". I'd love to hear of one that was though.

Posterity only remembers the most acclaimed pieces, there are plenty of airport novels no one remembers and that have nothing to envy to modern Tiktok.

Re: 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023

#70

Post by egypturnash » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

rfarley04 wrote: post #3

But all my friends on Goodreads are claiming to finish a book a week Are... Are they LYING?? No one lies on the internet. EDIT: Wow I guess I hit a, nerve. Sorry folks. I use Goodreads and finish about a book a month. So I don't think a book a week is unreasonable/impossible. I just meant to allude to the fact that the platform has gotten a lot of attention for review bombing and profile manipulation. Anyways, here i…

I know this is humor but:

a. the original poll this article is based on says that 1% of the US population reads 50+ books a week; 1% of 3.3*10^8 people is still a lot of people.

b. some books are much easier to read than others, are your friends just kicking back once a week with a competently-written potboiler in a genre they've been reading half their life, or are they reading one abstruse 800-page tome after another? Or are they reading kid's books to a child in their life?

Lying's certainly a possibility too, but so's marking something as "read" when you actually abandoned it somewhere before the end - and that's a spectrum too; when I read Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" I abandoned it about ten pages before the end but I'd still say I "read" it. If I'd only gotten ten pages in I wouldn't say that.