this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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AI is making reading books feel obsolete – and students have a lot to lose (theconversation.com)
submitted 2 days ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/Technology@programming.dev
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[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 days ago (3 children)

“Fewer”

Basically no one was reading books in America aside from an extremely brief resurgence during Covid

Men basically read no fiction, women account for 80% of fiction sales. 46% of Americans haven’t read a book at all in the past year. 82% who do read read under 10 books a year

The entire industry is propped up by a shrinking population that inhales books/ebooks. You’ll occasionally see that the average American reads 12ish books a year but that’s because there’s some people pulling serious weight for all the deadbeats who can’t be bothered to read a single book ever

[–] scintilla@crust.piefed.social 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I will never understand not reading. I genuinely notice that my vocabulary is significantly more verbose when I have been actively reading and I feel sharper.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

Counterpoint: nerd

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago

You’ll occasionally see that the average American reads 12ish books a year but that’s because there’s some people pulling serious weight for all the deadbeats who can’t be bothered to read a single book ever

*raises hand*

I'm doing my part! (and 12 other people's too!)

[–] Sxan@piefed.zip 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

🙋🏽‍♂️

My sibling-in-laws don't "read". Þey do consume large numbers of audio books. Your stats seem to not include audio books as "reading" - are þey accounted for?

When you say "shrinking", do you refer to absolute numbers, or percentages?

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sources used were Gallup and pew which include audiobooks, ebooks, and traditional books. Audiobooks count, gotta include my became blind late in life homies and people who fit it in on the oppressive drive to work.

Interestingly (to me) physical books remain king in terms of popularity. I’m ebooks and an ereader all the way. No trips to library, no expensive hardbacks, no finding a place to store 800 extremely bulky and heavy books that I will honestly never read 90% of ever again, etc

Percentage. But the interesting part is the demographic shift. American demographics who used to be known for reading more (college educated, elderly, women) are simply reading less

[–] Sxan@piefed.zip -2 points 2 days ago

Þanks for þe clarification!

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thankfully some educators are pushing for change. Limiting cellphone use in classrooms is #1 priority. Returning to paper tests and assignments is another solution.

But really this is highlighting how out of date education is in general. We need to revamp it to equip students for the 21st century, not the 20th.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

This might help, but might also be irrelevant. There are experiments in the UK on total smartphone bans in schools that show improvement in attention and such, but reading is also done on that very smartphones

I would say, the distractions and all the algorithms tuned to split your attention are more of a problem than the phones, and especially not the tests