No Spanish Reading Crisis?(commonreader.co.uk) |
No Spanish Reading Crisis?(commonreader.co.uk) |
(since I think probably people are reading these days more than ever - it just may be on forums like HN, social media, and AI output, etc.)
so if you just define that specifically then we could just promote it on social media, people reading these specific things, and then "boom" more people are "really reading"
(I presume people want to see more people reading "Great Books of Classic Literature" which is probably a great goal, things like Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" or Dante's "The Divine Comedy", etc.)
Outside of that, I don't think we should gatekeep it too much though - the biggest benefits come from reading anything at all.
That said, I find it odd that people assume that reading a book is always higher quality than reading the internet etc. - many books are pretty low quality.
And if we look at stuff like the PISA scores, it doesn't seem like this supposed higher rate of reading is paying many dividends.
iirc, The Prince from Machiavelli is required reading during secondary education. That will surely awaken their political awareness.
In Spain? Never heard of that, and would not make sense. An italian author writting about politics in Florence?
Honestly, this sounds like a shitpost and I'd remove the line if I was the author.
That aside, I really don't understand the glorification of reading. I love reading (also I'm Spanish) and I do it every day, but reading can also just mean reading romance novels and living in a parallel unrealistic world, and that doesn't make you or "democracy" better than a non-reader that may be a movie watcher addict.
If you include a screen I've read everyday for the past 25+ years
Im assuming that screens dont count because its not novels/literature
but audio books are the same content but delivered by a different medium, I am genuinely curious as to your opinion on is not counting
Screens however, are you including something like an eReader as _not_ reading books?
I read books, but I also read essays, newsletters, blogs, Wikipedia articles, discussions and so on. These also contain important and useful information. It's not a dichotomy between books and slop. Hell, a lot of books should have been blog posts.
Audiobooks are also valid, as are podcasts. Sure, they might not engage you like text does, but they still impart knowledge.
To me, this is like ranting against electric bikes because they're not as difficult. If they get more people to engage in a fun activity, then they serve their purpose.
All that said, [I find] reading books is overrated. They're often outdated, low effort slop, and even more so in this AI era.
Get me the kindle sale stats.
Readership issues in countries like the USA started way before mass adoption of AI, so also it's not related to AI effects.
I dunno. There's something to be said for having the focus to sit down and read through a book. It suggests someone is a little more comfortable with their own thoughts and doesn't succumb to constant tech distractions. Which in turn suggests an ability to think more clearly and less emotively about politics.
Could just as likely suggest they're affluent enough to have time to sit down and read vs listen to an audio book or just skim news in a magazine or on a screen between jobs.
Maybe. There’s been a significant backlash against popular fiction authors for writing in anything but the first person, single fixed POV recently which sort of suggests that readers don’t like having to deal with the interiority of multiple different characters. If they’re not comfortable with the bare minimum of cognitive dissonance are they really doing much thinking, or just letting the text wash over them as someone does while watching a YouTube video?
I've thought about this. I agree with you not all reading is equal, and reading social posts (including HN) is the equivalent of junk food, but there's something about reading that sets it apart. I think it's like exercising. Reading engages parts of the mind not exercised otherwise, it requires a more active imagination, it often involves "adult" mechanisms like delayed gratification that are less present in other forms of communication. It's more active and less frictionless than many internet activities, watching TV, etc. That's why it's sometimes a struggle to find a moment to read, and why young people often don't do it: it requires more effort than competing activities (this struggle also applies to physical activity, of course!). And this effort does something positive to your brain, I think. I'd say given two forms of trash entertainment, one trashy literature, and the other a trashy TV show, the former is better for you than the latter.
Just in case anyone wants to debate this, I am NOT saying watching TV is completely frictionless or requires no imagination at all, and of course there's a lot of variance in which specific show or movie. I'm only arguing in relative terms.
Just that if someone asks you if you were reading this morning, you should probably say "no" if you were listening to a podcast. It's not a value judgement, just a category.
Very different brain processes. They're the same in that they are both forms of entertainment based on a written story, I guess.
-edit- I said "non-fiction" when I meant "fiction". Of course non-fiction books become obsolete quite fast sometimes.
For those who put in the work, there isn't even a cultural bond to enjoy since most of the people who originally consumed those works are themselves dead and buried. (Modern niches and widely studied "classics" notwithstanding.)
What a crazy take!
> Appreciating it often requires social context I don't really have time to learn.
????
> And many fictional works from the past are chock full of racism, sexism, irrational social phobias, etc
I have some news for you. That stuff has lasted for as long as humans have existed, and will continue to exist as long as humans do. It is intrinsic to humans, unfortunately.
So audiobook genre fiction is reading, but audiobook War and Peace or audiobook The C Programming Language doesn't count. Not for arbitrary gate-keeping reasons, but because reading those books implies a more active form of engagement than marching linearly through it.
Leaving my devices inside and sitting on the porch, reading a book feels much healthier for my brain. And more intentional consumption than passive noise to kill time.
Isn't that how tarot cards and all that bollocks works?
Listening to audiobooks, IMHO, is a more passive and less focused way of consuming literature.
A talented reader can work magic. Ukemi and Naxos have great titles.
And reading on screen is reading.
Audio books are passive content. It's not reading. Not remotely the same brain process.
Also, I'm very much convinced that the brain is distracted away from the content by the voice acting and intonation; same way that most people physically can't concentrate when listening to music with vocals, evolution made us really sensitive to the human voice.
Shakespeare is so old it's now undecipherable to any English speaker without a cliffnotes explaining it all.... for instance
No doubt. Doesn't mean I want to consume more of it via fiction.