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Most school systems accidentally make reading a dreadful activity as the texts are tied to rote learning of facts and events for exam purposes
The big five publishers don't seem to care about declining reading rates and continue to put out the same five or six types of books bc they don't know how to market anything else
Ebooks don't retail for competitive prices, both compared to hard copy books and to other media
Lol.
America elected a felon rapist pedophile....twice.
Reading isn't a thing here anymore. Democracy probably won't be for long either.
P.S. I'm currently reading "The Magic Mountain".
I know I have found myself reading less because I spend so much time trying to stay aware of the fuckery, so that when I have time and a logical break to read my books I am too mentally exhausted or disinterested in reading further. I do know that I can and should temper the flow of information, but it's hard to look away from the fire despite the need to pause the doom for the mind. Balance, diversity and whatnot, right?
Yea I’m reading a book on historical Israel / Palestine relations and it’s so hard to motivate myself to read it because it’s just more madness.
Which book? Do you recommend it?
I would strongly recommend it.
It’s written by Benny Morris, a Zionist who laughs about starving children, but if you acknowledge that bias the book is a tremendous resource. It’s well cited and Benny does not shy away from describing in detail the atrocities his nation has always committed.
I've had a similar reaction to Hitlers People. It's good, it's informative, it's just so bleak the reminder that so many people went along with it.
I've actually gotten back into reading. It's a nice escape from the digital world.
My friend recently started reading after seeing me read so often. She kept bragging about how fast she can read pages and I was telling her to relax its not a race just enjoy the book. Fastforward a few days and she got like 30pages in and gave up. It was an ok book, thief of time by Terry Pratchett.
I think for a lot of people reading is so mentally different from what they're used to that its very hard to do let alone to find pleasure in.
30 pages in a few days... Fast... Wut.
They get this questionable ideas from the internet. I read # books in a month, great achievement indeed! Do they have any fun in that. Of course. 30 pages is an assay, it's not a month of read. I have seen the idea of reading as something strange. Either elevated to the level of a high level activity that smart people do, or something that must be done to give yourself the tone of a robust and decent reader.
Not.
It's a casual activity that anyobdy can do at their pace. I love reading, when I'm in the midst of a reading slump i jump to some other hobby of mine, and i come back even stronger. In the end reading is a skill. Read things that catch your eye but learn to stay for the long run.
Just here to object to calling anything by Pratchett just an "ok book". Sacrilege, I say!
From what I've read in /r/teachers, many kids refuse to read anything longer than a couple of paragraphs.
I recently saw a post about some grown-ass adult shocked that his GF recommended a "chapter book", as he put it.
I watched a podcast recently wherein some actor talked about writing a book-- "... I wrote one-hundred and twenty thousand words, which is like twice what any sane person writes for a book." I write as a hobby, and have written a handful of books of around 150,000 words, just for fun.
I'm not surprised so few people read for fun anymore--texting makes up most people's reading these days, as far as I can tell. No one cares to concentrate on one thing for more than the length of a TikTok video.
I believe social media and short-form videos have completely tanked the average person's attention span, and I'm certainly included in that demographic. I've read more this year than the past 5 years (probably), but goddamn is it difficult to stay focused on reading.
I personally don't think attention spans have gotten worse. The problem is that tech has figured out how to grab your attention and toss it around so well that it feels like an addiction. We've come a long way from neon sign advertisement to whatever hell social media is now.
I suppose it could be a little bit of both.
I haven't thought of the phrase "chapter book" since I had kids in early elementary school.
Basically, the US education system got fixated in a non-scientific strategy for teaching reading. Which has resulted in a significant drop in literacy skills and a subsequent dislike for reading as a pastime. Three cueing doesn't work and it actually hurts reading skills. It's like figuring how to teach walking by observing people with muscular distrophy. Sure, they have lots of tricks to help them stay mobile, but it is not how most people walk. They fumbled the research and created a millionaire industry of teaching material that the school districts got fixated on under a false promise, to help read the worst performers. Teaching these tricks to healthier children leaves them depending on subpar crutches and they never develop the actual skills. As a result, the average performers were hurt into bad performance and the good performers were harmed. Now we know that there's no trick. Just like rehabilitation, the only way to teach reading is by pushing through it. Phonics is tedious training and without a good support structure it is frustrating for the worst performers, but it is the only way to get them to read better. Just like rehabilitation clinics are more about creating an environment where the required exercise and walking training can be pushed through with minimum tedium and frustration in an emotionally healthy way.
Until you can read a page at least effortlessly, then reading for pleasure and strong literacy cannot be developed. Toss in mind numbing social media rewarding instant gratification and you have a recipe for disaster.
I learned recently that certain genres do have word limits in publishing. Like if it is over a certain length it goes straight in the garbage because it depends on how the publisher deals with that market.
Totally bizarre but maybe that's what the celebrity was also alluding too with the sane people comment? Or not, I dunno.
I love reading but I grew up before smart phones. I'm not sure reading and smart phone brain go together.
I sometimes read books on my smartphone.
The porn addicts on TikTok would disagree. Porn books are insanely popular and many people seem to only read those.
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss all romance/romantic as porn. Some of them are well written with a touch of the forbidden for an elevated experience.
Not saying there aren't bad pornographic books but dismissing a whole genre for some puritanical reason also seems ill fitted.
Of course! There are classy romances. However, my understanding is that a lot of these “romantasy” books are exploiting young audiences with graphic sex.
See: Bride
The people simply refused, all these years later, to abolish [the electoral college] that has led to some of the worst presidents in American history.
The EC is enshrined in the Constitution. The only way to "abolish" it would be to pass a constitutional amendment. That would have to first pass Congress, then be ratified by the states' legislatures. All of that is so far away from "the people" that it's disingenuous to blame "the people" for its still being in place.
Alternatively, there's also the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would not amend the constitution, but bypass its restrictions through agreement by signatory states. This has a much better chance of taking effect than a proper amendment. While this is a bit closer to "the people," it's still pretty far away.
e: I don't know where the parent comment this was a reply to went, but I'm leaving it anyway.
I now prefer audiobooks myself. I don’t know if this counts as reading though
Article is counting audiobooks:
For the purposes of the study, it was considered reading for pleasure if participants read a book, magazine, newspaper, or e-reader, or listened to an audiobook, for their own personal interest.
Yes I know some people count it as reading ; but I use a few different parts of my brain when listening, instead of seeing words.
So whatever I am doing may be different enough to not be the same.
I'm punishing myself by grinding through James Joyce's "Ulysses"
Godspeed
Do they count micro reading like social posts and news stories? I know books are a better way to exercise your mind, but it’s not like people aren’t reading on sites like this all the time.
The article is counting news and magazines but not social posts. They actually say social posts are part of problem.
I read so much when I was a kid and even through and after high school. Somewhere mid bachelors, I got too busy with my studies and stopped reading for pleasure. When I have attempted to read again, I find myself completely and utterly bored, unengaged, and wanting the experience to end. I stopped buying or checking out books 7 - 8 years ago. I miss it, but I can't experience pleasure from it anymore.
I hadn't read for fun for like a decade and a half. But in the last few months, I got myself hooked on yuri manga, and then yuri light novels. I kept hitting a wall whenever a manga wasn't done yet but the light novels were. I just kept saying "fuck it" and finishing with the novel, rather than waiting forever for the rest.
It happened with Otherside Picnic, it happened with I'm in Love with the Villainess, and a couple of others. Then I started just buying more ebooks, standalone stories without manga adaptations, for the fuck of it. Reading is great.
People should be more open to comics and Mangas. I sincerely hope the new trend among younger kids gets overlooked when looking at teenage reading statistics.
Solo leveling might not be the height of literature but it beats not reading any day.
Hard to read when they ban the books you're interested in and cut library services.
I would debate streaming services having that significant of an impact. It's likely the same impact that traditional TV used to have, especially when VCRs entered the mainstream (into DVDs, Blurays, and around the same time, Streaming).
I think mobile gaming and social media would be more likely to blame. Not to mention algorithms. Maybe it's only me, but most algorithms rarely pick out things I was interested in (it was very easy to tell that they were just ads). And as the younger generation depends on algorithms, not hard to imagine that they slowly become disenfranchised with what they're reading if it's not something they really want to read.
But the real reason behind this is the education system. High schools were effectively turned into diploma mills. There's also a lot of bullying for teenage boys that like reading in the school system, and many boys do not have a high literacy rate in public schools. Repeated Republican governments in America have decimated the education system as well.
Jack reacher novels are a very easy & fun read. They should try that. Might even help some of the "male crisis" folks. Because the hero is a typical masculine all-American world-saver who is not macho in any way. Now I think of it, I wonder what Lee Child has written since 2016 and how it reflects on Trump1/2.
Hi am a reading expert.
Theyll be four million money now.
Audiobooks saved my sanity when I had a 2hr commute at my last job. Highly recommend listening if you don't have the space (mental or literal) to read books normally!