. “By asking them to read,” she said, “professors are arbitrarily withholding information from students by forcing them to get it through this more difficult medium.” Holy crap im glad I'm old and...
. “By asking them to read,” she said, “professors are arbitrarily withholding information from students by forcing them to get it through this more difficult medium.”
Holy crap im glad I'm old and probably won't get to see the shambles the world will turn to
someone on the short form social media once told me “literacy is not an unequivocal good” and that pretty much sealed the deal for me on whether or not we as a species were headed to disaster....
someone on the short form social media once told me “literacy is not an unequivocal good” and that pretty much sealed the deal for me on whether or not we as a species were headed to disaster.
I've recently arrived at the conclusion that a huge number of people are literal screen addicts and will desperately rationalise the state of affairs in any way they can. Not necessarily any...
I've recently arrived at the conclusion that a huge number of people are literal screen addicts and will desperately rationalise the state of affairs in any way they can. Not necessarily any different than an alcoholic or a cocaine user insisting they actually function better with the right amount of buzz.
Ya, that stock iOS keyboard sucks in Dvorak. The Google one feels a bit better, but still kinda crappy. If anyone made a Dvorak layout blackberry style keyboard, I'd snatch that up in a heartbeat.
Ya, that stock iOS keyboard sucks in Dvorak. The Google one feels a bit better, but still kinda crappy.
If anyone made a Dvorak layout blackberry style keyboard, I'd snatch that up in a heartbeat.
I use Dvorak when I’m on a keyboard, but I never managed to get it working on iOS. But your comment made me realize that it’s actually probably rather poorly designed for typing with two thumbs…
I use Dvorak when I’m on a keyboard, but I never managed to get it working on iOS.
But your comment made me realize that it’s actually probably rather poorly designed for typing with two thumbs…
I love dvorak on a real keyboard, but if i try to type (as in not slide/glide) on iOS, it consistently confuses A and O, C and R and L, and M and W. It just really sucks, but since i only...
I love dvorak on a real keyboard, but if i try to type (as in not slide/glide) on iOS, it consistently confuses A and O, C and R and L, and M and W. It just really sucks, but since i only transitioned to dvorak this year, i don’t want to confuse myself with qwerty on the phone and dvorak on the computer. So here we are! 🫠
Yeah that’s fair. I made the transition quite a long time ago now but my thumbs still know QWERTY. It seems like there should be a layout designed for alternating thumbs, e.g., all vowels on the R...
Yeah that’s fair. I made the transition quite a long time ago now but my thumbs still know QWERTY.
It seems like there should be a layout designed for alternating thumbs, e.g., all vowels on the R side, with the most common letters in a circle around the home row where your thumb rests.
I failed to find anything in a (brief) internet search though.
I grew up in the 70s and one of my earlier memories is of scouring book shelves in the library, aged about 7 or 8, looking for new or returned Dr. Who? books that I hadn't read. The first book I...
I grew up in the 70s and one of my earlier memories is of scouring book shelves in the library, aged about 7 or 8, looking for new or returned Dr. Who? books that I hadn't read.
The first book I bought for myself with earned money was a hardback copy of Day Of The Triffids I found in a jumble sale.
Mum really encouraged my reading and it's stuck with me all this time.
We had this collection of Jules Verne books at home and when i got through those I went through all the ones available at the library, then basically read all the sci-fi shelves. I have this vivid...
We had this collection of Jules Verne books at home and when i got through those I went through all the ones available at the library, then basically read all the sci-fi shelves. I have this vivid memory of a teacher yelling at me to close the book and pay attention to her when I was around 15.
I've still not kicked the habit of staying up too late reading :D
I'm particularly tired of think pieces looking at the mess that is education (globally, nobody is utilizing the state of the art in pedagogy at large institutions) failing when beaten by the waves...
I'm particularly tired of think pieces looking at the mess that is education (globally, nobody is utilizing the state of the art in pedagogy at large institutions) failing when beaten by the waves of social media addiction and deciding this is an evolution for humanity. This isn't post-literacy, it's our society failing and us all willfully converting ourselves into dependent hostages a la North Korea.
Well, so the author seems to mostly agree with this, but does do a good job, imo, of pointing out that while we're living through this, it seems like a doom, but it's much like how society seemed...
Well, so the author seems to mostly agree with this, but does do a good job, imo, of pointing out that while we're living through this, it seems like a doom, but it's much like how society seemed doomed when the TV was invented or the printing press, etc. I do tend to agree that things are bad right now and social media is a far different beast than prior inventions, since it's always in our pocket and we can't be intentional about consuming it (it's just always there), but I did find the points she made to be interesting. I do wonder in 50 years how we'll look back on this decade and she did also bring up that there's been some cited pushback with teachers banning phones, starting to assign reading again, etc.
I personally do think that as a whole, our attention spans are waning as we have our lives filled with either mindless content or propaganda, so I generally agree with you, but I don't necessarily agree that the author of this piece was trying to dance around how much of a mess things are. She was labeling the current state as post-literacy to demonstrated that it isn't that people are incapable of reading words, it's that people are becoming unable to understand deeper meaning. I could definitely see the argument that that's illiteracy, but I don't think the author or the piece was trying to sweep under the rug the state of education and society.
The most surprising thing I’ve learned about banning phones in schools is that it seems like (at least at high school age) the kids themselves seem to lean slightly supportive and it’s the parents...
The most surprising thing I’ve learned about banning phones in schools is that it seems like (at least at high school age) the kids themselves seem to lean slightly supportive and it’s the parents who push back harder.
Apparently kids view the smartphones as something of a leash that enables helicopter parenting. The context of a high school is that you’re in a fixed area with pretty much your whole social universe for most of the day anyway, so it’s not really as critical to them for being able to hang out with their friends.
A lot of writing about this sort of thing sort of treats kids as passive consumers of cultural forces, but I think at least by the time they become teens, they are pretty well aware of what’s happening to them. And they DO want to be set up to learn and grow and be capable and self-possessed. They WANT the adults in their lives to set them up to succeed and, at least the driven and ambitious ones, do recognize conceptually that they need their guardians and parental figures to help them maintain healthy boundaries for themselves.
To me, post-literacy as a state implies it does something. Preliterate culture existed. I'm rather unconvinced that our culture will survive once the average person's education is as simple as...
To me, post-literacy as a state implies it does something. Preliterate culture existed. I'm rather unconvinced that our culture will survive once the average person's education is as simple as being hitched onto the hedonic treadmill of algorithmic conditioning.
I did leave another comment after replying to yours with some of my other thoughts. To me, the bigger red flag isn't necessarily that consumption of novels or newspapers is going down, it's that...
I did leave another comment after replying to yours with some of my other thoughts. To me, the bigger red flag isn't necessarily that consumption of novels or newspapers is going down, it's that many people I meet these days seem to dedicate very little time to hobbies in general. I think having a hobby like painting, crocheting, board games, or even working on cars, can lead you down some of the paths you need to learn critical thinking skills. You're solving "puzzles", you're learning how to research, etc.
That said, I say this as a person who did receive a good education and for the people coming through our poorer (as in lower quality) education systems these days, I guess I don't have the context to know if they even know how to start a hobby or if getting into a hobby will actually help them develop these literacy skills or if I'm just assuming it will because that's how I go through life.
I do absolutely 1000% agree that our education system is declining, but I guess what I'm getting at is that we don't necessarily need to assign novels in english class to get people educated and that we have other routes to do that than books, but god damn education is declining for sure right now.
I don't disagree with you, I think I'm just saying I could see a world where "post-literacy" in the context of "post-everyone-reads-books" isn't necessarily a doom, as long as people generally still learn critical thinking skills through other routes, but that definitely isn't happening en masse yet (and I do consider that the forces that fund our education (or cut funding, rather), also would prefer if we don't consume art or be creative in any fashion).
I think hobbies and education are a chicken-egg problem. If you don't have a good education, you lack the fundamentals to get started in a lot of hobbies. And education isn't just the base...
I think hobbies and education are a chicken-egg problem. If you don't have a good education, you lack the fundamentals to get started in a lot of hobbies. And education isn't just the base fundamentals like math, science, and english -- it fans outwards into everything, from how to properly measure, to the science of lifting, to pacing yourself during cardiovascular work, to debugging where your plumbing system has a loose connection.
Books are one of the cheapest ways to extend your existing skillset, but if you don't have a good foundation to start from, you're still screwed. I would struggle to build a deck, for instance, but my dad figured out how to build one 30 years ago from a single book at his local library. How? His parents taught him fundamentals like digging postholes and assembling fences, and he extended his knowledge. Meanwhile he never taught me those fundamentals, so I'll need to cover the fundamentals before I start building new walls in my basement.
There is some hope, though. How-to videos lower the bar dramatically for a lot of mechanical tasks. I figured out basically all of my bicycle repair and maintenance skills from Park Tool's excellent video series (plus Sheldon Brown's website). But I fear as a society we're losing a lot of fundamental skills between generations that will take a lot of effort to reclaim.
I love the points you make here and it does make me realize that I had the privilege of learning life skills while growing up and while many people still do, some may not due to being tablet kids,...
I love the points you make here and it does make me realize that I had the privilege of learning life skills while growing up and while many people still do, some may not due to being tablet kids, a worse education system, or whatever.
For example, I judge people that can't change a wheel on their car (to be fair, it's a jack + 5 lug nuts, it REALLY is not that hard), but I realize that I grew up fixing things, so it was easy for me to learn to work on cars.
I've never built a deck and don't know the first thing about it, but because I grew up being taught how to learn and research and to be comfortable with not knowing things, I'm certain that I could easily find out how to build one if I needed to.
And it's easy for me to say that something like that is easy for me and to not get why others can't research, don't have hobbies, etc., but like you pointed out, I could see how someone born in 2006 might be more helpless at age 20 than I was, due to a higher chance of not learning how to think in the first place. It's not that changing a wheel on a car is difficult, it's that many people haven't been taught how to be curious, how to learn, or how to research, so they might just "shut down" when on the side of the road instead of typing into youtube "how to change car wheel".
I guess I'm also doing a lot of assuming and prescribing based on my own personal experiences. Most of my friends are well educated, know how to problem solve, etc., because as a person like that, I don't really seek out friends who are completely dissimilar to me. It's easy for me to make assumptions on what's causing the problems we're seeing when I don't really directly interact with the kinds of people I'm describing (and I definitely don't want to come off as blaming people for being lazy or dumb when it's mostly systems that failed them and not the other way around).
I'm kind of rambling now, but I find this subject extremely deep and fascinating and there's still so much for me to think about and learn.
I agree with you (although I have to admit that I do have difficulty with changing tires sometimes — my upper body strength is pathetic, and some of those lug nuts are really tight!). I think just...
I agree with you (although I have to admit that I do have difficulty with changing tires sometimes — my upper body strength is pathetic, and some of those lug nuts are really tight!). I think just having a habit of trying things and seeing projects through, whatever they are, builds self-confidence that can be applied to anything.
I didn't grow up building high-tension fences, designing irrigation systems, or building furniture — all things I self-taught for the first time as an adult, without any guidance but how-to guides and videos. I didn't grow up doing anything like those tasks; instead, I grew up doing little crafts like sewing Halloween costumes and painting pictures. But these activities, simple as they were, gave me confidence that I can try new things, recover from mistakes, and ultimately succeed if I'm determined enough.
In my personal observation, the number one thing I see holding people back is anxiety. They're so scared of messing something up and have no confidence whatsoever in their ability to improvise when something goes wrong. They think they have to do everything in the 100% "best" way (e.g., thinking they need to invest in expensive raised garden beds before they'll even entertain growing vegetables), which raises the stakes so high that they're afraid to try it at all. And even when the stakes are extremely low (e.g., messing up a loaf of sourdough bread), people often freeze up the moment something goes a little sideways and they need to wing it.
In my experience with teaching skills to other people, it's about a bazillion times easier to teach somebody who already has some kind of confidence-building hobby than somebody who does not. I can teach a programmer (for example) how to prune fruit trees without much trouble, even though there's essentially no overlap between the two skills, simply because programmers are pretty used to making mistakes.
I’ve noticed this as my son has grown up. There is SO much stuff in his life as a 4 year old that is gated by the fact that he can’t read yet. He has the reasoning and problem solving skills to...
I’ve noticed this as my son has grown up. There is SO much stuff in his life as a 4 year old that is gated by the fact that he can’t read yet. He has the reasoning and problem solving skills to navigate all sorts of things, but the fact that he can’t read instructional text nerfs him.
I didn't grow up particularly well off, but through the efforts of my parents I got a decent education and am living comfortably now, though certainly not in luxury. My main hobby is reading,...
I didn't grow up particularly well off, but through the efforts of my parents I got a decent education and am living comfortably now, though certainly not in luxury.
My main hobby is reading, though I'm also a big fan of 3d printing and laser cutting, though I haven't dedicated the time to be more than a pure amateur at making my own designs.
I see so many people of a similar age to me just... Not do anything with their free time. Hours upon hours of scrolling or seeing the same news over and over x.x
On the other hand, I read on my phone a lot, so I'm sure someone more physically active would say the same about me
I grew up in essentially a poor family in a trailer in the backwoods to parents who lacked college education. I wasn't very athletic and was socially inept. I was nearly held back in kindergarten,...
I grew up in essentially a poor family in a trailer in the backwoods to parents who lacked college education. I wasn't very athletic and was socially inept. I was nearly held back in kindergarten, first, and second grades. My grandmother worked in a magazine agency and provided me with tons of free unsold magazines each week, which I read. That reading allowed my mind to blossom and develop, and I ended up being a stellar student by fifth grade, and was to an honors level in high school. I also got into computing with a VIC-20 computer through reading. I'm living comfortably now and well set up financially for early retirement in hopefully a few years. Reading allowed me to escape poverty and undoubtedly some low paying mundane job in rural America. And, yes, I now see the same thing with family just doom-scrolling, endlessly. It's sad what we're wasting - all this computing power, what would have been super-computers back when I was a teenager, now at our fingertips.
Oh, absolutely. That's why the framing ticks me off. If we legitimately were freeing ourselves from the oppression of written language, it'd be great. If we were training kids to think...
Oh, absolutely. That's why the framing ticks me off. If we legitimately were freeing ourselves from the oppression of written language, it'd be great. If we were training kids to think multidimensionally and immanently, the loss of artistic appreciation for a form I love would be a worthwhile trade. Instead, people are being trained to fear indeterminacy, not to think, and are being left to follow their pleasure centers into the human mill. That's social collapse, not change.
It is still possible to be intentional about not consuming it. In the case it is absolutely needed for some reason only accessing it from desktop is also possible. I don't think I would last long...
and social media is a far different beast than prior inventions, since it's always in our pocket and we can't be intentional about consuming it (it's just always there)
It is still possible to be intentional about not consuming it. In the case it is absolutely needed for some reason only accessing it from desktop is also possible.
I don't think I would last long about consuming digital crack intentionaly so I avoid it instead.
One of the reasons every social media app has a messaging function now is a way to bait you to wade back in. Once you have one or two friends who mainly message you on a specific app then you’ll...
One of the reasons every social media app has a messaging function now is a way to bait you to wade back in. Once you have one or two friends who mainly message you on a specific app then you’ll check into that app to talk to them, and once in that’s when they have dark patterns to get you on the infinite scroll treadmill.
Same with groups. If you’re part of a PTO, a gym, a book club, or many other sorts of community organizations many of them do their primary outreach and bulletin board stuff on Facebook or Instagram. It’s another case where if you want the month’s calendar of activities you’re clicking into an Instagram page and then that’s how they get you.
The only way to avoid it if you’re an active and engaged member of a normie community group is through constant application of willpower, which is another way of saying it’s simply not gonna happen at any scale that will be meaningful.
You can be, but it's oh so hard these days. I don't use twitter, tiktok, bluesky, instagram, etc., but I still find myself unable to avoid reddit and discord. With discord, I tell myself it's...
You can be, but it's oh so hard these days. I don't use twitter, tiktok, bluesky, instagram, etc., but I still find myself unable to avoid reddit and discord. With discord, I tell myself it's because that's where my friends are (including my IRL friends), but it's also social media and in some cases, I'm choosing to interact with the people in my phone over the world in front of me.
I could get a dumb phone, but it's a trade off, not an upgrade. I'm then losing access to certain functions like maybe maps and the ability to look something up if it's urgent or I'm having an emergency.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I think I'm about as intentional as I reasonably could be (a dumb phone is not possible for me because of my work), and even I feel like I consume too much social media. I can't imagine being on tiktok or insta all day. I also avoid pulling out my phone instinctively when I'm in a queue or in a waiting room, so I'm trying to be intentional there, and I still feel like I'm on social too much.
I consider myself a pretty serious reader, consuming 30-50 books of serious literature every year. I have a 3500 volume library in my house. Reading for me has been a way to try and understand...
Exemplary
I consider myself a pretty serious reader, consuming 30-50 books of serious literature every year. I have a 3500 volume library in my house. Reading for me has been a way to try and understand myself and the people/world around me. I can't think of any better way to really understand humanity than these deep works of literature. Literature focuses on the human condition, it allows you to view so many different people and different ways of life and does so in a very sympathetic manner so you really get a deep feel for these characters and their situations. My lifetime of reading has added so much value to my life I can't even picture me being who I am today without those great works. I still have so many more books to read, and therefore so much more growing to do as a person.
I've also discovered that I am a rare soul in this quest for understanding humanity through literature. Even among other readers I run into almost all are consuming genre fiction for 'entertainment' purposes. That's fine, people will pass their time as they see fit, so I'm not surprised that reading in general is vanishing. Why take 10+ hours to consume a book for entertainment instead of watching a movie or consuming shorts, people are just looking to pass the time anyways. I've found a lot of people who are off put about thinking any deeper about life and the people around them, they actively search for ways to block that stuff out by consuming cheap, easy media that is nothing but a distraction from their own thoughts.
People are different. Some will try and seek out the deeper meanings of life and some will not. I hate to say one outlook is better than the other, each has to find their own path in life. I know what has worked for me and I'm glad I was able to find real meaning in my life through this literature. So I always advocate for deep reading of serious literature, but I've never once convinced someone else to do so. :)
This is why I don't think post-literature is a thing. As I see it, for as long as there has been a choice in how we receive information, some people have chosen reading out of necessity and others...
This is why I don't think post-literature is a thing.
As I see it, for as long as there has been a choice in how we receive information, some people have chosen reading out of necessity and others out of preference. The phase we're moving into is one that accommodates people who do not prefer reading, and allows them to remain illiterate.
But when I compare modes of communication, there's a few different ways of looking at it. Maybe I prefer visual or aural stimulation. Maybe I remember letters better than sounds. Those are two reasons why I might prefer reading even if there are other options available.
But as someone who likes to read, the most compelling argument for me is pacing. My dad proselytizes to me about audiobooks, and this is the reason I always give for why I can't enjoy them. I need to read at my pace. I need to stretch out a paragraph for 10 minutes if it's a really good one, and quickly devour others. If a book doesn't have those paragraphs that I want to reread and pause and ruminate on, then it's not a good book to me.
I suspect there will always be people who want to consume at their own pace, and reading uniquely lets you do that. I know audio lets you skip around, but I think that's a very different experience.
I hear you about Audiobooks, while I do listen to Audiobooks on my morning commute I specifically pick more plot-based novels and genre fiction (there is lots of good stuff there too) than deep...
My dad proselytizes to me about audiobooks, and this is the reason I always give for why I can't enjoy them. I need to read at my pace. I need to stretch out a paragraph for 10 minutes if it's a really good one, and quickly devour others. If a book doesn't have those paragraphs that I want to reread and pause and ruminate on, then it's not a good book to me.
I hear you about Audiobooks, while I do listen to Audiobooks on my morning commute I specifically pick more plot-based novels and genre fiction (there is lots of good stuff there too) than deep literature. When I read some more serious work of literature I definitely need to be able to pace myself, I want to write in the margins and underline sentences that catch my attention. I usually read with a notepad beside me writing down character names and a simple sentence about who they are, drawing lines to show character relationships, ect. Sometimes I need to read paragraphs over and over or flip back to reference previous sections of the book, this can't be done properly with an Audiobook. A big part of why I love literature is the quality of the prose, and sometimes that prose needs to be sipped like fine wine, sloshed around in the brain and contemplated.
I read to understand humanity too. I feel like my brain is too slow to achieve empathy while speaking to people in real time. But If I read, fiction or non, It helps me imagine other people's...
I read to understand humanity too. I feel like my brain is too slow to achieve empathy while speaking to people in real time. But If I read, fiction or non, It helps me imagine other people's perspectives.
Mostly I read science fiction. I would push back on genre as only entertainment and "literature" focusing on the human condition. I like to think about different civilizations, from different conditions or tech, or just alternate ways of living. And how real humans would and could interact with each other in ways that our current globalized culture might have arbitrary blind spots to. So many social experiments are not possible/moral outside of our imaginations. I think genre fiction is a great way of thinking about human nature.
Of the top of my head, some of my favorite 'human condition' genre writers are Ursula K Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kurt Vonnegut. Becky Chambers.
It's baffling to me that people don't think about the past and future more. How can we understand and manage our civilization without thinking about where it was 1000+ years ago and where we'd like to be in 1000+ years? I think It's crazy that politicians almost never talk about anything more than a few years in the future. We don't need to predict the future. But we at least need to talk about what we want for the future of humanity If we want to have any mindful effect on it.
Cosign I've learned more about empathy and standing up to injustice from genre fiction than literary fiction. Even the least "literary" of SFF tends to have heroes willing to do what is right in...
Cosign
I've learned more about empathy and standing up to injustice from genre fiction than literary fiction. Even the least "literary" of SFF tends to have heroes willing to do what is right in the face of cruelty.
From the Federation to Valdemar, from the Ooankali to the Aandrisk, genre books taught and reinforced values that I wish everyone shared.
I think of science fiction as fantasy with tech vibes. It can be very good fantasy (for example I recommend Ada Palmer) and it can be scientifically or historically informed with bits of truth in...
I think of science fiction as fantasy with tech vibes. It can be very good fantasy (for example I recommend Ada Palmer) and it can be scientifically or historically informed with bits of truth in it, but even supposedly “hard” science fiction often cuts corners. And as for the “human condition,” one wouldn’t read Ursula K Le Guin’s anthropological science fiction to understand what any real society is like, but rather to imagine other possibilities. (Often, impossible possibilities, but you can suspend disbelief.)
Similarly, historical fiction is usually historically inaccurate, and even stories that are historically well-informed often fill in details we simply don’t know much about. Sometimes it inspires me to read actual history, and then it’s often surprising the very basic things we simply don’t know and can only guess at. That’s particularly true of ancient history.
What good is all this reading? It increases the range of possibilities we can imagine when speculating. Often, it doesn’t help much for narrowing it down to what did happen, because you need real evidence for that.
So I’ve accepted that it’s mostly entertainment that keeps the mind active. And you can say that of a lot of things.
I've struggled with and mostly avoid Historical Fiction because of the inaccuracies, I get it, authors are trying to tell a good story within a certain period of time. I love history, and I love...
I've struggled with and mostly avoid Historical Fiction because of the inaccuracies, I get it, authors are trying to tell a good story within a certain period of time. I love history, and I love learning about history but most of my learning about history is done through university lectures or adult intended continuing education lectures (The Great Courses, ect). With historical fiction I'm always worried that it is going to cause me to remember history incorrectly because our brains are wired for stories and those do seem to sink in better than hard lectures. Is what I remember about the Napoleonic Wars from the respected lectures I watched or this book I read that was full of inaccuracies? Inaccuracies which I can't even really tell are inaccuracies or not, which is really the heart of the problem.
When watching a lecture delivered by a PHD in History on some topic, I don't spend much time thinking... is this accurate? When reading Historical Fiction that is all I can think about... is this bullshit? I don't have time to look all this up and I don't want to fill my head full of potential inaccuracies which I'm then going to turn around and repeat as truths.
If wanted to read some epic soap opera that takes place in the early 1800's why would I pick some modern Historical Fiction instead of just reading Tolstoy's War & Peace?
I prefer reading articles and books by historians who tell you about the debates between different historians (the historiography) and what consensus there is, along with an overview of what...
I prefer reading articles and books by historians who tell you about the debates between different historians (the historiography) and what consensus there is, along with an overview of what evidence historians have to work with, as well as their own personal opinion. They can be biased too, but at least they give you context.
I see what you are saying, I've also read a lot of Sci-fi! I used to switch back and forth, one work of serious lit, then a Sci-fi book (mostly older stuff 1950-80's) I did this for quite a while...
I see what you are saying, I've also read a lot of Sci-fi! I used to switch back and forth, one work of serious lit, then a Sci-fi book (mostly older stuff 1950-80's) I did this for quite a while but kept finding myself disappointed in the Sci-fi books. I think they are super cool, they have great ideas in them, lots of big picture questions on present and future humanity, what I found they lacked was the deep dives into the inner worlds of individual characters or treatises on hyper-realistic human societies and relationships. Sci-fi is definitely more plot driven and to show off world building and technology advancement. Not that Sci-fi has nothing to say, there's lots to say, but just maybe not what I am looking for.
Maybe it had more to do with the era of books I was reading, but Sci-Fi especially up to the 90's had a big problem with very poorly written female characters and when I tried to read more modern Sci-Fi it seems like a big part of it was who could write the most complicated plot with the most 'twists' and I had a hard time trying to follow those books, spending my time with the book just trying to figure out what was going on instead of absorbing the inner worlds of the characters.
Authors I really liked: Ursula K Le Guin as you mentioned had a real talent, I would consider her the closest thing to Sci-Fi Lit we have. Neal Stephenson but I liked his Historical Fiction more than his Sci-Fi, I read the entirety of The Baroque Cycle and loved it, also Cryptonomicon is great. Roger Zelazny wrote some really cool books, I read the entirety of Amber and books like 'Lord of Light' are really neat. H.G. Wells has a great catalogue of books. Kurt Vonnegut of course, Philip K Dick did some really neat thought experiment type books. Bradbury, Asimov (Foundation is really good), Clarke, Heinlein (but too much weird sex).
My favourite story ever is still Dan Simmons first 2 books of Hyperion, what a masterpiece of story telling and pacing.
Yep. That is getting better though. The last decade or two of scifi and genre in general seems to have really expanded past its normal white dude authorship and I think its brought it to a whole...
very poorly written female characters
Yep.
That is getting better though. The last decade or two of scifi and genre in general seems to have really expanded past its normal white dude authorship and I think its brought it to a whole new level. Try Becky Chambers, either Long Way to a Small Angry Planet for a chill space opera with real characters talking about their cultural differences. Or A Psalm for the Wild-Built for a chill post apocalyptic meditation.
Not new or chill, Another one I thought of: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. That one got me thinking a lot about the nature of humanity.
Stephenson is a favorite but the last two baroque cycles are the only books I haven't read yet. I read Quicksilver and thought it was great but needed a break it was so long, and I never went back.
I loved all the Hyperion books but I keep meaning to go back for a reread as there was so much and I can barely remember it all
I read most of the Asimov Heinlein Clark golden age stuff when I was teenager. I think its great but wouldn't have recommended any of that to someone who is interested in characters.
I haven't read any Zelazny, where should I start?
This may be true, but how have you observed this? It could be an interesting story.
I've found a lot of people who are off put about thinking any deeper about life and the people around them, they actively search for ways to block that stuff out by consuming cheap, easy media that is nothing but a distraction from their own thoughts.
This may be true, but how have you observed this? It could be an interesting story.
Talking to a wide variety of people, some seem really interested in reflecting on life and the world around us and other people return blank stares. I hate to be judgemental and accuse people of...
Talking to a wide variety of people, some seem really interested in reflecting on life and the world around us and other people return blank stares. I hate to be judgemental and accuse people of having 'empty minds' and not being inquisitive, but I really struggle with it, some people genuinely seem uninterested in thinking about that kind of stuff (or at least are not interesting in talking about it). We seem to live in a world where we are just bombarded with so much cheap entertainment, unlimited music on Spotify, endless shorts on Tiktok, doom scrolling Reddit, where are the moments of quiet contemplation? I think it's healthy to be bored sometimes, gives you the room to think about yourself.
I dont know the people you are thinking of, but I would emphasize this possibility. You never really know whats going on in someone elses mind. Some people might just prefer thinking over...
some people genuinely seem uninterested in thinking about that kind of stuff (or at least are not interesting in talking about it).
I dont know the people you are thinking of, but I would emphasize this possibility. You never really know whats going on in someone elses mind. Some people might just prefer thinking over interesting topics on their own vs discussing them with others.
I agree completely, I hate sounding like I'm insinuated that some people have 'empty minds' it really sounds awful. I wrote my comment over and over and kept deleting it because I kept feeling 'I...
I agree completely, I hate sounding like I'm insinuated that some people have 'empty minds' it really sounds awful. I wrote my comment over and over and kept deleting it because I kept feeling 'I sound like an asshole'. If literature has taught me anything it is that every one has a deep inner life and world.
It's pretty interesting to see this conclusion based on this question. I'll also add that the illiterate peasants were more critical, as they refused to take Luria at his word that "In the Far...
[Neuropsychologist Alexander] Luria met his subjects at teahouses, in field camps, and around evening fires. There, he posed a number of questions designed to elucidate differences in how illiterate and literate peasants thought. Luria told the peasants: “In the Far North, all bears are white. Novaya Zemlya is in the Far North.” He then asked them the color of bears in Novaya Zemlya. The literate peasants were able to complete the syllogism. But the illiterate ones refused to try, explaining that they had never been to the north and thus couldn’t answer. Achieving literacy seemed to have conveyed an ability to think logically and abstractly, not simply to read words.
It's pretty interesting to see this conclusion based on this question. I'll also add that the illiterate peasants were more critical, as they refused to take Luria at his word that "In the Far North, all bears are white." I'd have to see more about this study to feel confident in this conclusion, but to me it seems smarter to refuse to try, "explaining that they had never been to the north and thus couldn’t answer." I don't think this takes much away from the article's overall point (though I admit I've run out of time to read it and need to finish later), but it's worth thinking about. There's always value in staying grounded and not getting carried away from that by complex thought.
You can of course answer that question in terms of the premise without addressing whether the premise is true. It follows from the premise that the bears of Novaya Zemlya are white, regardless of...
You can of course answer that question in terms of the premise without addressing whether the premise is true. It follows from the premise that the bears of Novaya Zemlya are white, regardless of whether you are critical of the idea that they actually are. I know little about the fauna of Novaya Zemlya, but I understand it as a hypothetical syllogism, and it seems to me that the difference was that the literate peasants recognized it as such as well, while the illiterate peasants did not.
Case in point, we both reason about this account as though it happened as told even though we weren't there to experience it, and we both form hypothetical ideas about the implications of the result as presented. We accept it as true for the sake of the argument and we build ideas on it. That is immensely useful.
Now, I think it's much more dubious whether it was due to a lack of literacy that these peasants didn't understand the question. It could as well be that people that for some reason hadn't had a pressing need or interest to learn to read and write probably haven't had a pressing need or interest to engage in that level abstract thinking either for that same reason. If you have a busy day-to-day life that can mostly be understood in terms of your own experience and the knowledge that has been handed down for generations maybe you have no need or time for reading nor that kind of deductive reasoning.
There is value in a grounded perspective, but a peasantry that is either incapable or uninterested in engaging in abstract, hypothetical thinking seems like it would be less than ideal in a democratic society.
This seems like a good place to recommend an excellent science fiction novel called Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis, who also wrote The Hustler, The Color of Money, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The...
This seems like a good place to recommend an excellent science fiction novel called Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis, who also wrote The Hustler, The Color of Money, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The Queen’s Gambit.
It takes place in a future where reading is forgotten. A college professor who teaches Ancient Cinema stumbles on an archive of silent films and realizes that the occasional sequences depicting static shapes on a background are pictures of words and proceeds to learn how to read. When he teaches someone else to read, it turns out that reading isn’t just forgotten, it’s illegal.
Of course, the book is really about the culture of anti-intellectualism that was building up steam in America in the late 1970s when the book was written. Also, robots!
I enjoyed reading through this and did like the different facets of this issue that the author explored. I'm personally of the mind that social media, phones in our pockets, and shortening...
I enjoyed reading through this and did like the different facets of this issue that the author explored. I'm personally of the mind that social media, phones in our pockets, and shortening attention spans is a different beast than prior inventions that changed communication, like the early internet, TV, radio, the printing press, novels, etc. However, I am curious how we'll look back in 50 years and if we'll as a society generally think that novels were silly or niche when you could instead listen to an audiobook or read a synopsis.
I personally still enjoy reading, but even I admittedly read far fewer novels nowadays than I used to. I definitely read more words than I used to, considering I code for a living, I read news articles, I'm on discord all the time, etc., but those all seem part of my boring everyday life instead of exploring a world through a piece of fiction and using my imagination (imagination being another topic the author touched on and one facet of why books may be important to us as a species and something that social media lacks).
One thing I thought about while reading this was that reading as a hobby in your own free time seems less important to me than having a hobby to enjoy in your free time. I agree that literacy is becoming a problem, not in that people can't understand words, but that people can't understand the meaning behind them or critically think. That said, one thing I've definitely noticed in society is that many people don't have any creative hobbies at all or they won't talk about them. When I meet new people, it's always "what do you do for a living", not "what do you enjoy doing in your free time?" When we introduce a new hire at work, they talk about their work and their family, but never mention their hobbies, etc.
I don't read as many books as I used to, but I paint, I play board games, I play video games and not just for shallow experiences (though I absolutely still enjoy games like CoD), but I love games with deeper themes, as well. I think one important thing to think about is that if we're seeing a reduction in reading as a society, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing as long as people are finding some creative outlet. However, I know many people that just do not do anything creative or ever let their brain run wild. They'll consume TV or movies and not really discuss them after or think about themes. That's the larger problem than specifically reading, I think. Creative outlets that aren't reading can lead people towards those critical thinking patterns that we think we're losing as a society. I get it, it's hard to find the time for a hobby these days when work crushes at least a third of our week and so many other things demand our time. I speak as someone with the privilege of time, since I'm single, have no kids, have a good work life balance, etc., but I do think everybody needs a hobby, especially a non-screen hobby, even if it isn't reading.
That’s pretty normal, historically. There’s a reason there’s a bunch of people named Baker or Smith - it was the norm for your occupation to be your identity in the past. That was your role in...
That said, one thing I've definitely noticed in society is that many people don't have any creative hobbies at all or they won't talk about them.
That’s pretty normal, historically. There’s a reason there’s a bunch of people named Baker or Smith - it was the norm for your occupation to be your identity in the past. That was your role in society, and it consumed all of your time. Only the very wealthy could have things like hobbies.
The fact that leisure time is considered the norm is a modern invention. Perhaps a good one, but it’s not something that we use to have and lost. It’s the other way around.
That's a very good point. In some regards, the wheel will keep turning even if people don't have hobbies, don't read, etc., even if the decline in literacy is seen as a negative (to me, it most...
That's a very good point. In some regards, the wheel will keep turning even if people don't have hobbies, don't read, etc., even if the decline in literacy is seen as a negative (to me, it most certainly is). In some regards, the problems we face are problems humans have always faced. No time for hobbies because we need money to exist and the people that make the rules and run society are greedy and always want more. That's not new to 2026, though it still has aspects that are different than in 1026.
This article and people's comments have given me a lot to think about today, that's for sure.
This is something I can identify with for sure, I hate this question. I work in the trades, whenever someone asks me what I do for a living and I answer that I'm in the trades I can feel myself...
When I meet new people, it's always "what do you do for a living", not "what do you enjoy doing in your free time?
This is something I can identify with for sure, I hate this question. I work in the trades, whenever someone asks me what I do for a living and I answer that I'm in the trades I can feel myself judged and can feel they instantly think less of me intellectually. I don't give a shit about my job and I'm only working for a paycheque so I usually try and answer 'who cares?', that will throw people for a loop because a lot of people incorporate what they do for a living as a large part of who they think of themselves as. I try to define myself by my hobbies and interests, my passions. Electrical work is not my passion, reading literature is.
Exactly, I code for a living, but I do zero coding outside of work. Ask me about my miniature painting or disc golf or something else, instead! Why do people care or want to know where I work? I...
Exactly, I code for a living, but I do zero coding outside of work. Ask me about my miniature painting or disc golf or something else, instead! Why do people care or want to know where I work? I mean, they probably don’t, it’s just a cultural norm to ask. I make it a point to ask people about their hobbies or their life instead.
Embrace working in a trade! I say ignore the haters, tell them exactly what you do for a living and then after tell them who you really are. I repair industrial machinery for a living. I literally...
Exemplary
Embrace working in a trade!
I say ignore the haters, tell them exactly what you do for a living and then after tell them who you really are.
I repair industrial machinery for a living. I literally have 2 weeks worth of uniforms with blue collars.
I don't mind telling people at all. For one I'm proud that I do something real and don't just go to meetings and send emails all day. I'm also proud because I'm good at it.
I like being underestimated. I don't have a degree, and will be up front about that if it comes up. I read a lot and have a lot of surface level knowledge in all kinds of niche, intellectual type stuff. I'm happy to organically demonstrate my knowledge or value and surprise people if they stick around. If they silently judge and move on that's fine. If they ask more questions I can tell them all kinds of stuff they probably don't know about how things are manufactured. Or we could talk about Steinbeck or linear algebra, or whatever they do for a living or hobby.
Dynamic people like us who can do a hard dirty job AND engage in abstract intellectual interests are the best of both worlds IMO. "Renaissance men" (Or rather Renaissance people).
Also, I work for myself/freelance, and I make a pretty decent income.
I think most tradesmen earn well in our current economy, at least relative to office jobs. Electricians have unique skills that are undeniably valuable to human civilization. A lot of trades are likely be the last jobs to get replaced by AI. They require intelligence, creativity, flexibility, and dexterity.
Are you a Millwright by trade? I'm specifically an Industrial Electrician, Foreman of a shop that builds PLC/Drive panels for all sorts of industries, I also fix CNC machines (The panel shop is...
Are you a Millwright by trade? I'm specifically an Industrial Electrician, Foreman of a shop that builds PLC/Drive panels for all sorts of industries, I also fix CNC machines (The panel shop is only one division of a larger company that does industrial manufacturing and machining, we have all sorts of CNC machines spanning the 1980's all the way to brand new. It's a great job and I enjoy it, but I'd still rather not be doing it and will retire the moment it's possible.
Wow, that's funny our jobs are so related. I had assumed you were a building electrician. And we both like reading/scifi! Yeah, I'm kind of a millwright. But I feel a little imposter syndrome...
Wow, that's funny our jobs are so related. I had assumed you were a building electrician.
And we both like reading/scifi!
Yeah, I'm kind of a millwright. But I feel a little imposter syndrome whenever that terms comes up, it sounds so official and I never had any formal training.
I started in 2004 working for a small company that rebuilt machines. I learned how to hand scrape and align axis ways, like on bridgeport mills to start and then bigger stuff. But I kind of sucked at scraping, it would take me twice as many hours to finish as everyone else.
I found I was better at diagnosing electrical issues and fixing weird, old, or custom machines that no one understood. CNC and manual mills/lathes, presses, shears, etc. a little bit of everything. I also got into retrofitting old machines with PLCs, VFDs etc. We had a sister company that did fanuc retrofits on CNC machines. I helped with those back in the day but still haven't gotten to do a full CNC retrofit on my own yet. I modify machines to add features or automate things. And I built a few custom machines from scratch.
I've been working for myself for 5 years now. I still do basic repairs, alignment and relocating machines. Anything that doesn't have factory support anymore, either cause it's too old or it was built in house by a guy who retired in the 80s, etc. That can be rewarding sometimes. But I am thinking about how to transition away from basic repair and only do the fun custom stuff. I'm afraid to let the repair work go as the custom stuff can be fickle and I don't want to be caught without customers.
I'm in Los Angeles and I think that is a part of my success. most people are surprised to hear how much manufacturing is in LA . Lots of aerospace and space stuff, plus the regular misc. But there is barely anyone in this area that knows how to work on machines. It seems like the east coast/rust belt has a lot more technicians like me.
Because you might be the only one on tildes who could appreciate it, I PMed you an album of my latest project.
10+ years ago I built two custom machines for this customer in Altadena that makes these tiny wooden parts. Last year they lost their building to these huge fires we had. So we had to scramble to get production back up. Rather than start from scratch again I had them buy a CNC mill(Tormach 1500mx). I designed a fixture that could mount on the table to make their parts. I used the mill itself to make the fixture. Then because its a linuxCNC control, I was able to dig into the code and reroute the IO so I can have Gcode operate the fixture along with the other axes. The time crunch was stressful but otherwise it was a really fun project. This year they bought a 2nd mill to increase production. I get to design v1.1 and fix all the mistakes I made on the first one.
In education, the solutions are relatively simple. Assign reading to kids, follow them up with reading quizzes that can't be reliably spoofed from SparkNotes (ex: who said this? this excerpt...
In education, the solutions are relatively simple. Assign reading to kids, follow them up with reading quizzes that can't be reliably spoofed from SparkNotes (ex: who said this? this excerpt happened after which of the following plot points? etc). Then fail the kids who can't pass. For some reason we can't converge on the notion that education should educate, and we see the inevitable fruit.
On the other hand this is exactly what kills reading for fun for kids: being tested on what they read. A similar thing happens in language learning at school.
On the other hand this is exactly what kills reading for fun for kids: being tested on what they read. A similar thing happens in language learning at school.
I suppose you mean quizzes administered in person, proctored, live with no machine assistance and different for every class? That requires a lot of resources and being aligned between educator and...
I suppose you mean quizzes administered in person, proctored, live with no machine assistance and different for every class?
That requires a lot of resources and being aligned between educator and parents. Public education like you said doesn't aim to educate but to graduate, unfortunately, even if the teacher is given enough resources to ensure the child is doing their part of receiving education
The sway that (a loud minority of) parents have over the school system is in large part responsible for the degradation of public (and even private to some extent) education. This is in some ways...
The sway that (a loud minority of) parents have over the school system is in large part responsible for the degradation of public (and even private to some extent) education. This is in some ways a side effect of living in a democratic republic, as opposed to a social democracy, in the sense that families have the room to vote with their feet and the public education system accommodates this "marketplace" of preference. Deciding the exact right way to educate is an extremely difficult practical and philosophical problem, and so there is a sensibility in having it decentralized. But, at least culturally, we need to converge on the value of literacy and basic numeracy and probably be pretty strict in making it happen, if a well-informed citizenry is essential to a well-functioning republic. As the article mentions, America was once fairly impressive in its education system relative to the rest of the world. Now, we're quite behind.
Those parents are like that because society has moved decent middle class life behind university and professional jobs. If a person working full time at a grocery store can support a spouse and...
Those parents are like that because society has moved decent middle class life behind university and professional jobs. If a person working full time at a grocery store can support a spouse and kids, we wouldn't have these kinds of "how dare you give my kid a B" parents.
In the end the fault again lies with the ultra wealthy who have extracted living wages out of our society. They made society into a gladiator ring first: of course parents have to readjust and stop viewing school as education, and instead think of it as a cruel hunger game of hurdles keeping their kids from a decent life.
I guess, but this also applies to elementary and middle school, where grades literally make no difference on college admissions. As far as I see, it's a cultural phenomenon more than anything else.
I guess, but this also applies to elementary and middle school, where grades literally make no difference on college admissions. As far as I see, it's a cultural phenomenon more than anything else.
Make poetry great again! I mean, if we can’t keep our attention for longer than the average TikTok video of 30 seconds, then maybe we can make poetry the new hot thing to read? Only takes half a...
Make poetry great again!
I mean, if we can’t keep our attention for longer than the average TikTok video of 30 seconds, then maybe we can make poetry the new hot thing to read? Only takes half a minute to read a good poem and if you like it, no hassle needed to turn the page to read it again.
We used to tell stories with epic poetry. Handed down from each generation and memorized with the aid of rhyme . Then we invented this new fangled technology (reading, writing, paper, etc.) and...
We used to tell stories with epic poetry. Handed down from each generation and memorized with the aid of rhyme .
Then we invented this new fangled technology (reading, writing, paper, etc.) and modern humans can't even recite Beowulf anymore! Surely that signals the decline of human civilization.
I always feel bad when I don't finish these articles, but I realized about 25% through that I was not really interested in the rest of the article. Am I part of the problem dot jpeg
I always feel bad when I don't finish these articles, but I realized about 25% through that I was not really interested in the rest of the article. Am I part of the problem dot jpeg
I felt exactly this when I noticed I had glossed over this bit: I chuckled then forced myself to read it.
I felt exactly this when I noticed I had glossed over this bit:
Doctor Zhivago was the best-selling novel of the year, according to Publishers Weekly. Pasternak writes in long, complex sentences: “On that warm gray morning in the mountains, Zhivago felt sorry for the Tsar, was disturbed at the thought that such diffident reserve and shyness could be the essential characteristics of an oppressor, that a man so weak could imprison, hang, or pardon.”
This is why lumping all this in as illiteracy is ridiculous. This is The Atlantic, we all know their conventions, and you probably read up to the start of the quote, contextually realized that you...
This is why lumping all this in as illiteracy is ridiculous. This is The Atlantic, we all know their conventions, and you probably read up to the start of the quote, contextually realized that you didn't need to read it to get the point, and moved on. That is good media literacy, not even necessarily an indicator of low attention span, let alone a sign of poor literacy. But kids are being deprived of being taught how to learn things like that.
Yep. I wonder if it was an intentional "gotcha": the author knew it didn't matter, that it was an overly verbose sentence, and that it would make readers feel bad the way I did (just enough to...
Yep. I wonder if it was an intentional "gotcha": the author knew it didn't matter, that it was an overly verbose sentence, and that it would make readers feel bad the way I did (just enough to think of it as ironic).
I think this article uses a good 6000 words more than necessary to get its point across. Kind of the Atlantic's vibe, unfortunately. I appreciate the nuance and extra context, since short news...
I think this article uses a good 6000 words more than necessary to get its point across. Kind of the Atlantic's vibe, unfortunately. I appreciate the nuance and extra context, since short news articles always leave me wanting more, but I think it's perfectly valid to dislike this rambly tone. I always hate a story/vibe article that opens with some unrelated background about the author getting dinner or something.
Same honestly, though I did come back to re-read the rest. It's not your fault imo. I think it's a fairly weak article that does contains a lot of good points, but also includes these long...
Same honestly, though I did come back to re-read the rest. It's not your fault imo. I think it's a fairly weak article that does contains a lot of good points, but also includes these long litanies of context-less statistics and trite, excessively teleological historical analysis, all without any real propulsive narrative to carry you through it. Like, the author ends the essay with her personal history of growing up loving literature, and then slowly losing the habit of reading to her phone. That's good stuff, I feel the sorrow there, I just wish more of the article had been that, instead of boring, affectless cultural commentary stringing together points I've heard before fifty different times.
I also really rolled my eyes when the author attempted to (dismissively) contrast 20th century classic Doctor Zhigavo with alleged modern YA trash Sunrise on the Reaping -- which I haven't read myself, but which my extremely smart (adult) brother loved for being sharp, political, and beautifully written in its own right -- and maybe the author realized this midway through the paragraph, because when she pulls a quote to demonstrate how bad modern lit is, she suddenly pivots to quoting romantasy instead. The article in my opinion needed at least one more pass to refine its arguments, there's a lot of that kind of rhetorical clumsiness there.
I was fascinated to hear that the author eschews text messages in favor of voice messages for communication with her friends. As someone who hates listening to audio from my phone (unless I've...
I was fascinated to hear that the author eschews text messages in favor of voice messages for communication with her friends. As someone who hates listening to audio from my phone (unless I've already put headphones in to intentionally listen to a podcast or music), yeeesh. I'd never be able to communicate like that! Hell, I get annoyed when people use voice-to-text because it always produces rambly and partially incoherent messages.
My little sister uses the voice messages too, I think it's a younger Zoomer thing maybe? I asked her about it once and she says it's easier then writing a long message when she just wants to...
My little sister uses the voice messages too, I think it's a younger Zoomer thing maybe? I asked her about it once and she says it's easier then writing a long message when she just wants to ramble or work through something emotional which, sure, I guess. I love hearing her voice but it is a bit annoying to have to put in earbuds to continue the conversation. But maybe she finds my multiple-paragraph-long screeds annoying, too.
I mean... Text editing on phones is awful unless you have a physical keyboard. My comment on that post remains true almost three years later (minus me now using the Heliboard virtual keyboard,...
There's like a mental barrier when typing on mobile versus having an actual keyboard. Words flow more easily with a physical keyboard, possibly because I'm not having to constantly pick out correct spellings or fix it capitalizing random words as I'm actively typing, and can edit it more easily. And I'm not limited to tiny textboxes that only show a few lines at a time (six to seven for this reply box). I honestly end up writing a bunch of longer messages in a text editing app just so I can see a full paragraph, or even copy them to a Google Doc called "Tildes Repository" so I can just take over writing on a computer.
Now that I think about it, a lot of Zoomers probably have more experience with touchscreen keyboards than actual keyboards, meaning they primarily know typing as a pain... That might contribute to the rise in shortform content.
I had basically the same take on typing as you do, until I developed a left hand tremor. Now the keyboard swipe on my phone is by far easier than typing on a pc keyboard! Kind of a bummer in...
I had basically the same take on typing as you do, until I developed a left hand tremor. Now the keyboard swipe on my phone is by far easier than typing on a pc keyboard! Kind of a bummer in itself, but at least there's a usable option for me.
Interesting article. I want to throw out there my own personal thoughts on how I've mourned my own personal loss of desire to read for fun. As a kid, reading was one of my main hobbies. The local...
Interesting article. I want to throw out there my own personal thoughts on how I've mourned my own personal loss of desire to read for fun. As a kid, reading was one of my main hobbies. The local library was a favorite spot of mine, and I'm grateful that I had parents who were willing to shuttle me there nearly every weekend. My imagination was (and still is, embarrassingly so) quite active, so books were a great outlet for that. It also put me well ahead of the curve at reading level compared to my peers all throughout primary school.
However, as with many other kids, my interest in reading for fun waned as a result of how the modern education system (and society in general) handles literacy. Although the process was gradual, my transition to high school was a pivotal time. The school sent a list of required summer reading for English class prior to starting 9th grade. I knocked out reading the novels early in the summer break and spent a bit of time refreshing on the main themes and plot points prior to the start of the year. The first day started off with a graded quiz where the majority of the questions focused on details like on the color of X's personal belonging or the exact time mentioned when X event occurred. Most people in the class completely bombed the quiz, and this was an English class for the highest performing kids from middle school. The teacher then "welcomed" us to high school and told us that this was only just the beginning.
From then on, how I read books changed. Fun was no longer a goal. Reading morphed into a refined process where I extracted what I needed to perform well. I started mentally tracking my reading speed and adjusted how much I read so that I didn't finish too quickly while pacing enough to prevent cramming. I actively suppressed the amount of imagining I did when I read because it might introduce false details in my memory. I focused on thinking what words, passages, or points were the highest candidates as material for teachers to lock onto.
Those skills carried me through the rest of high school, college, professional school, and my career. It's especially effective for reading textbooks, scientific articles, reference material, etc, which worked out since I work in STEM. But I lost the ability to pick up a novel and read for the sake of reading. I last tried to read a novel (Flowers for Algernon) about 15 years ago while I was at the courthouse for jury duty standby, and I couldn't stop myself from dissecting the book the way I would for school.
I don't blame that teacher or any other teacher from my primary school days; it's not as though I have any solutions to the problems educators face when combating the decline of literacy. That was the era of Sparknotes and Cliffnotes, so as an educator, he needed some way to "weed" out people who tried get away with not touching the novels at all. Outside of class, you can tell he was truly passionate about teaching, and he himself loved literature and media literacy as a whole. In fact, he was widely considered one of the best teachers at the school by the students for how his classes changed their perspective.
I have no problem reading when it's attached to other forms of entertainment. Video games, manga, shows/movies (subtitles are always on for me), forum posts/discussions, articles, etc. are all still enjoyable to me. But the moment I pick up a novel, my brain immediately starts counting the pages as if I'm back in school again. I still "love" books, and I've purchased plenty of books over the years to keep up the support for physical media. But they sit on a shelf as a backlog for if/when I'm able to overcome my hesitation.
Berkshire in absolute shambles. (sorry, couldn't resist the jocular response, especially on a post about Reading). Edit: Darn. I swear the original title used Reading capitalised :( Second Edit:...
Berkshire in absolute shambles.
(sorry, couldn't resist the jocular response, especially on a post about Reading).
Edit: Darn. I swear the original title used Reading capitalised :(
Does it really say “W enty-three” as the intro word? Reading ain’t dead for me yet. EDIT: I think it’s supposed to say “T wenty-three” as in “Twenty-three hundred years ago”. That just seems like...
Does it really say “W enty-three” as the intro word?
Reading ain’t dead for me yet.
EDIT: I think it’s supposed to say “T wenty-three” as in “Twenty-three hundred years ago”. That just seems like a huge mess-up.
. “By asking them to read,” she said, “professors are arbitrarily withholding information from students by forcing them to get it through this more difficult medium.”
Holy crap im glad I'm old and probably won't get to see the shambles the world will turn to
The natural evolution of “telling people to read is ableist”
someone on the short form social media once told me “literacy is not an unequivocal good” and that pretty much sealed the deal for me on whether or not we as a species were headed to disaster.
edit: fucked by dvorak, again (typo)
I've recently arrived at the conclusion that a huge number of people are literal screen addicts and will desperately rationalise the state of affairs in any way they can. Not necessarily any different than an alcoholic or a cocaine user insisting they actually function better with the right amount of buzz.
Apologies for the somewhat unrelated comment. But are you using a Dvorak keyboard layout?
yup! honestly on iOS it’s something of a nightmare, as the OS does not understand the words i type or swipe as intuitively as it does QWERTY.
Ya, that stock iOS keyboard sucks in Dvorak. The Google one feels a bit better, but still kinda crappy.
If anyone made a Dvorak layout blackberry style keyboard, I'd snatch that up in a heartbeat.
I use Dvorak when I’m on a keyboard, but I never managed to get it working on iOS.
But your comment made me realize that it’s actually probably rather poorly designed for typing with two thumbs…
I love dvorak on a real keyboard, but if i try to type (as in not slide/glide) on iOS, it consistently confuses A and O, C and R and L, and M and W. It just really sucks, but since i only transitioned to dvorak this year, i don’t want to confuse myself with qwerty on the phone and dvorak on the computer. So here we are! 🫠
Yeah that’s fair. I made the transition quite a long time ago now but my thumbs still know QWERTY.
It seems like there should be a layout designed for alternating thumbs, e.g., all vowels on the R side, with the most common letters in a circle around the home row where your thumb rests.
I failed to find anything in a (brief) internet search though.
Do you mean literacy?
yes, thank you 😔
I grew up in the 70s and one of my earlier memories is of scouring book shelves in the library, aged about 7 or 8, looking for new or returned Dr. Who? books that I hadn't read.
The first book I bought for myself with earned money was a hardback copy of Day Of The Triffids I found in a jumble sale.
Mum really encouraged my reading and it's stuck with me all this time.
We had this collection of Jules Verne books at home and when i got through those I went through all the ones available at the library, then basically read all the sci-fi shelves. I have this vivid memory of a teacher yelling at me to close the book and pay attention to her when I was around 15.
I've still not kicked the habit of staying up too late reading :D
I'm particularly tired of think pieces looking at the mess that is education (globally, nobody is utilizing the state of the art in pedagogy at large institutions) failing when beaten by the waves of social media addiction and deciding this is an evolution for humanity. This isn't post-literacy, it's our society failing and us all willfully converting ourselves into dependent hostages a la North Korea.
Well, so the author seems to mostly agree with this, but does do a good job, imo, of pointing out that while we're living through this, it seems like a doom, but it's much like how society seemed doomed when the TV was invented or the printing press, etc. I do tend to agree that things are bad right now and social media is a far different beast than prior inventions, since it's always in our pocket and we can't be intentional about consuming it (it's just always there), but I did find the points she made to be interesting. I do wonder in 50 years how we'll look back on this decade and she did also bring up that there's been some cited pushback with teachers banning phones, starting to assign reading again, etc.
I personally do think that as a whole, our attention spans are waning as we have our lives filled with either mindless content or propaganda, so I generally agree with you, but I don't necessarily agree that the author of this piece was trying to dance around how much of a mess things are. She was labeling the current state as post-literacy to demonstrated that it isn't that people are incapable of reading words, it's that people are becoming unable to understand deeper meaning. I could definitely see the argument that that's illiteracy, but I don't think the author or the piece was trying to sweep under the rug the state of education and society.
The most surprising thing I’ve learned about banning phones in schools is that it seems like (at least at high school age) the kids themselves seem to lean slightly supportive and it’s the parents who push back harder.
Apparently kids view the smartphones as something of a leash that enables helicopter parenting. The context of a high school is that you’re in a fixed area with pretty much your whole social universe for most of the day anyway, so it’s not really as critical to them for being able to hang out with their friends.
A lot of writing about this sort of thing sort of treats kids as passive consumers of cultural forces, but I think at least by the time they become teens, they are pretty well aware of what’s happening to them. And they DO want to be set up to learn and grow and be capable and self-possessed. They WANT the adults in their lives to set them up to succeed and, at least the driven and ambitious ones, do recognize conceptually that they need their guardians and parental figures to help them maintain healthy boundaries for themselves.
To me, post-literacy as a state implies it does something. Preliterate culture existed. I'm rather unconvinced that our culture will survive once the average person's education is as simple as being hitched onto the hedonic treadmill of algorithmic conditioning.
I did leave another comment after replying to yours with some of my other thoughts. To me, the bigger red flag isn't necessarily that consumption of novels or newspapers is going down, it's that many people I meet these days seem to dedicate very little time to hobbies in general. I think having a hobby like painting, crocheting, board games, or even working on cars, can lead you down some of the paths you need to learn critical thinking skills. You're solving "puzzles", you're learning how to research, etc.
That said, I say this as a person who did receive a good education and for the people coming through our poorer (as in lower quality) education systems these days, I guess I don't have the context to know if they even know how to start a hobby or if getting into a hobby will actually help them develop these literacy skills or if I'm just assuming it will because that's how I go through life.
I do absolutely 1000% agree that our education system is declining, but I guess what I'm getting at is that we don't necessarily need to assign novels in english class to get people educated and that we have other routes to do that than books, but god damn education is declining for sure right now.
I don't disagree with you, I think I'm just saying I could see a world where "post-literacy" in the context of "post-everyone-reads-books" isn't necessarily a doom, as long as people generally still learn critical thinking skills through other routes, but that definitely isn't happening en masse yet (and I do consider that the forces that fund our education (or cut funding, rather), also would prefer if we don't consume art or be creative in any fashion).
I think hobbies and education are a chicken-egg problem. If you don't have a good education, you lack the fundamentals to get started in a lot of hobbies. And education isn't just the base fundamentals like math, science, and english -- it fans outwards into everything, from how to properly measure, to the science of lifting, to pacing yourself during cardiovascular work, to debugging where your plumbing system has a loose connection.
Books are one of the cheapest ways to extend your existing skillset, but if you don't have a good foundation to start from, you're still screwed. I would struggle to build a deck, for instance, but my dad figured out how to build one 30 years ago from a single book at his local library. How? His parents taught him fundamentals like digging postholes and assembling fences, and he extended his knowledge. Meanwhile he never taught me those fundamentals, so I'll need to cover the fundamentals before I start building new walls in my basement.
There is some hope, though. How-to videos lower the bar dramatically for a lot of mechanical tasks. I figured out basically all of my bicycle repair and maintenance skills from Park Tool's excellent video series (plus Sheldon Brown's website). But I fear as a society we're losing a lot of fundamental skills between generations that will take a lot of effort to reclaim.
I love the points you make here and it does make me realize that I had the privilege of learning life skills while growing up and while many people still do, some may not due to being tablet kids, a worse education system, or whatever.
For example, I judge people that can't change a wheel on their car (to be fair, it's a jack + 5 lug nuts, it REALLY is not that hard), but I realize that I grew up fixing things, so it was easy for me to learn to work on cars.
I've never built a deck and don't know the first thing about it, but because I grew up being taught how to learn and research and to be comfortable with not knowing things, I'm certain that I could easily find out how to build one if I needed to.
And it's easy for me to say that something like that is easy for me and to not get why others can't research, don't have hobbies, etc., but like you pointed out, I could see how someone born in 2006 might be more helpless at age 20 than I was, due to a higher chance of not learning how to think in the first place. It's not that changing a wheel on a car is difficult, it's that many people haven't been taught how to be curious, how to learn, or how to research, so they might just "shut down" when on the side of the road instead of typing into youtube "how to change car wheel".
I guess I'm also doing a lot of assuming and prescribing based on my own personal experiences. Most of my friends are well educated, know how to problem solve, etc., because as a person like that, I don't really seek out friends who are completely dissimilar to me. It's easy for me to make assumptions on what's causing the problems we're seeing when I don't really directly interact with the kinds of people I'm describing (and I definitely don't want to come off as blaming people for being lazy or dumb when it's mostly systems that failed them and not the other way around).
I'm kind of rambling now, but I find this subject extremely deep and fascinating and there's still so much for me to think about and learn.
I agree with you (although I have to admit that I do have difficulty with changing tires sometimes — my upper body strength is pathetic, and some of those lug nuts are really tight!). I think just having a habit of trying things and seeing projects through, whatever they are, builds self-confidence that can be applied to anything.
I didn't grow up building high-tension fences, designing irrigation systems, or building furniture — all things I self-taught for the first time as an adult, without any guidance but how-to guides and videos. I didn't grow up doing anything like those tasks; instead, I grew up doing little crafts like sewing Halloween costumes and painting pictures. But these activities, simple as they were, gave me confidence that I can try new things, recover from mistakes, and ultimately succeed if I'm determined enough.
In my personal observation, the number one thing I see holding people back is anxiety. They're so scared of messing something up and have no confidence whatsoever in their ability to improvise when something goes wrong. They think they have to do everything in the 100% "best" way (e.g., thinking they need to invest in expensive raised garden beds before they'll even entertain growing vegetables), which raises the stakes so high that they're afraid to try it at all. And even when the stakes are extremely low (e.g., messing up a loaf of sourdough bread), people often freeze up the moment something goes a little sideways and they need to wing it.
In my experience with teaching skills to other people, it's about a bazillion times easier to teach somebody who already has some kind of confidence-building hobby than somebody who does not. I can teach a programmer (for example) how to prune fruit trees without much trouble, even though there's essentially no overlap between the two skills, simply because programmers are pretty used to making mistakes.
I’ve noticed this as my son has grown up. There is SO much stuff in his life as a 4 year old that is gated by the fact that he can’t read yet. He has the reasoning and problem solving skills to navigate all sorts of things, but the fact that he can’t read instructional text nerfs him.
Don't worry; I've been hearing rumors that the devs are going to buff the four-year-old class because it's just so damn frustrating to deal with.
No buffs please. His energy level is already too overpowered for anyone else to keep up with.
I didn't grow up particularly well off, but through the efforts of my parents I got a decent education and am living comfortably now, though certainly not in luxury.
My main hobby is reading, though I'm also a big fan of 3d printing and laser cutting, though I haven't dedicated the time to be more than a pure amateur at making my own designs.
I see so many people of a similar age to me just... Not do anything with their free time. Hours upon hours of scrolling or seeing the same news over and over x.x
On the other hand, I read on my phone a lot, so I'm sure someone more physically active would say the same about me
I grew up in essentially a poor family in a trailer in the backwoods to parents who lacked college education. I wasn't very athletic and was socially inept. I was nearly held back in kindergarten, first, and second grades. My grandmother worked in a magazine agency and provided me with tons of free unsold magazines each week, which I read. That reading allowed my mind to blossom and develop, and I ended up being a stellar student by fifth grade, and was to an honors level in high school. I also got into computing with a VIC-20 computer through reading. I'm living comfortably now and well set up financially for early retirement in hopefully a few years. Reading allowed me to escape poverty and undoubtedly some low paying mundane job in rural America. And, yes, I now see the same thing with family just doom-scrolling, endlessly. It's sad what we're wasting - all this computing power, what would have been super-computers back when I was a teenager, now at our fingertips.
Oh, absolutely. That's why the framing ticks me off. If we legitimately were freeing ourselves from the oppression of written language, it'd be great. If we were training kids to think multidimensionally and immanently, the loss of artistic appreciation for a form I love would be a worthwhile trade. Instead, people are being trained to fear indeterminacy, not to think, and are being left to follow their pleasure centers into the human mill. That's social collapse, not change.
It is still possible to be intentional about not consuming it. In the case it is absolutely needed for some reason only accessing it from desktop is also possible.
I don't think I would last long about consuming digital crack intentionaly so I avoid it instead.
One of the reasons every social media app has a messaging function now is a way to bait you to wade back in. Once you have one or two friends who mainly message you on a specific app then you’ll check into that app to talk to them, and once in that’s when they have dark patterns to get you on the infinite scroll treadmill.
Same with groups. If you’re part of a PTO, a gym, a book club, or many other sorts of community organizations many of them do their primary outreach and bulletin board stuff on Facebook or Instagram. It’s another case where if you want the month’s calendar of activities you’re clicking into an Instagram page and then that’s how they get you.
The only way to avoid it if you’re an active and engaged member of a normie community group is through constant application of willpower, which is another way of saying it’s simply not gonna happen at any scale that will be meaningful.
You can be, but it's oh so hard these days. I don't use twitter, tiktok, bluesky, instagram, etc., but I still find myself unable to avoid reddit and discord. With discord, I tell myself it's because that's where my friends are (including my IRL friends), but it's also social media and in some cases, I'm choosing to interact with the people in my phone over the world in front of me.
I could get a dumb phone, but it's a trade off, not an upgrade. I'm then losing access to certain functions like maybe maps and the ability to look something up if it's urgent or I'm having an emergency.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I think I'm about as intentional as I reasonably could be (a dumb phone is not possible for me because of my work), and even I feel like I consume too much social media. I can't imagine being on tiktok or insta all day. I also avoid pulling out my phone instinctively when I'm in a queue or in a waiting room, so I'm trying to be intentional there, and I still feel like I'm on social too much.
These pieces are almost certainly being pushed by tech oligarchs who benefit from this.
On the headline level, perhaps. But people are happy to dig their own graves too, if it means taking the easier path.
I consider myself a pretty serious reader, consuming 30-50 books of serious literature every year. I have a 3500 volume library in my house. Reading for me has been a way to try and understand myself and the people/world around me. I can't think of any better way to really understand humanity than these deep works of literature. Literature focuses on the human condition, it allows you to view so many different people and different ways of life and does so in a very sympathetic manner so you really get a deep feel for these characters and their situations. My lifetime of reading has added so much value to my life I can't even picture me being who I am today without those great works. I still have so many more books to read, and therefore so much more growing to do as a person.
I've also discovered that I am a rare soul in this quest for understanding humanity through literature. Even among other readers I run into almost all are consuming genre fiction for 'entertainment' purposes. That's fine, people will pass their time as they see fit, so I'm not surprised that reading in general is vanishing. Why take 10+ hours to consume a book for entertainment instead of watching a movie or consuming shorts, people are just looking to pass the time anyways. I've found a lot of people who are off put about thinking any deeper about life and the people around them, they actively search for ways to block that stuff out by consuming cheap, easy media that is nothing but a distraction from their own thoughts.
People are different. Some will try and seek out the deeper meanings of life and some will not. I hate to say one outlook is better than the other, each has to find their own path in life. I know what has worked for me and I'm glad I was able to find real meaning in my life through this literature. So I always advocate for deep reading of serious literature, but I've never once convinced someone else to do so. :)
This is why I don't think post-literature is a thing.
As I see it, for as long as there has been a choice in how we receive information, some people have chosen reading out of necessity and others out of preference. The phase we're moving into is one that accommodates people who do not prefer reading, and allows them to remain illiterate.
But when I compare modes of communication, there's a few different ways of looking at it. Maybe I prefer visual or aural stimulation. Maybe I remember letters better than sounds. Those are two reasons why I might prefer reading even if there are other options available.
But as someone who likes to read, the most compelling argument for me is pacing. My dad proselytizes to me about audiobooks, and this is the reason I always give for why I can't enjoy them. I need to read at my pace. I need to stretch out a paragraph for 10 minutes if it's a really good one, and quickly devour others. If a book doesn't have those paragraphs that I want to reread and pause and ruminate on, then it's not a good book to me.
I suspect there will always be people who want to consume at their own pace, and reading uniquely lets you do that. I know audio lets you skip around, but I think that's a very different experience.
I hear you about Audiobooks, while I do listen to Audiobooks on my morning commute I specifically pick more plot-based novels and genre fiction (there is lots of good stuff there too) than deep literature. When I read some more serious work of literature I definitely need to be able to pace myself, I want to write in the margins and underline sentences that catch my attention. I usually read with a notepad beside me writing down character names and a simple sentence about who they are, drawing lines to show character relationships, ect. Sometimes I need to read paragraphs over and over or flip back to reference previous sections of the book, this can't be done properly with an Audiobook. A big part of why I love literature is the quality of the prose, and sometimes that prose needs to be sipped like fine wine, sloshed around in the brain and contemplated.
I read to understand humanity too. I feel like my brain is too slow to achieve empathy while speaking to people in real time. But If I read, fiction or non, It helps me imagine other people's perspectives.
Mostly I read science fiction. I would push back on genre as only entertainment and "literature" focusing on the human condition. I like to think about different civilizations, from different conditions or tech, or just alternate ways of living. And how real humans would and could interact with each other in ways that our current globalized culture might have arbitrary blind spots to. So many social experiments are not possible/moral outside of our imaginations. I think genre fiction is a great way of thinking about human nature.
Of the top of my head, some of my favorite 'human condition' genre writers are Ursula K Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kurt Vonnegut. Becky Chambers.
It's baffling to me that people don't think about the past and future more. How can we understand and manage our civilization without thinking about where it was 1000+ years ago and where we'd like to be in 1000+ years? I think It's crazy that politicians almost never talk about anything more than a few years in the future. We don't need to predict the future. But we at least need to talk about what we want for the future of humanity If we want to have any mindful effect on it.
Cosign
I've learned more about empathy and standing up to injustice from genre fiction than literary fiction. Even the least "literary" of SFF tends to have heroes willing to do what is right in the face of cruelty.
From the Federation to Valdemar, from the Ooankali to the Aandrisk, genre books taught and reinforced values that I wish everyone shared.
I think of science fiction as fantasy with tech vibes. It can be very good fantasy (for example I recommend Ada Palmer) and it can be scientifically or historically informed with bits of truth in it, but even supposedly “hard” science fiction often cuts corners. And as for the “human condition,” one wouldn’t read Ursula K Le Guin’s anthropological science fiction to understand what any real society is like, but rather to imagine other possibilities. (Often, impossible possibilities, but you can suspend disbelief.)
Similarly, historical fiction is usually historically inaccurate, and even stories that are historically well-informed often fill in details we simply don’t know much about. Sometimes it inspires me to read actual history, and then it’s often surprising the very basic things we simply don’t know and can only guess at. That’s particularly true of ancient history.
What good is all this reading? It increases the range of possibilities we can imagine when speculating. Often, it doesn’t help much for narrowing it down to what did happen, because you need real evidence for that.
So I’ve accepted that it’s mostly entertainment that keeps the mind active. And you can say that of a lot of things.
I've struggled with and mostly avoid Historical Fiction because of the inaccuracies, I get it, authors are trying to tell a good story within a certain period of time. I love history, and I love learning about history but most of my learning about history is done through university lectures or adult intended continuing education lectures (The Great Courses, ect). With historical fiction I'm always worried that it is going to cause me to remember history incorrectly because our brains are wired for stories and those do seem to sink in better than hard lectures. Is what I remember about the Napoleonic Wars from the respected lectures I watched or this book I read that was full of inaccuracies? Inaccuracies which I can't even really tell are inaccuracies or not, which is really the heart of the problem.
When watching a lecture delivered by a PHD in History on some topic, I don't spend much time thinking... is this accurate? When reading Historical Fiction that is all I can think about... is this bullshit? I don't have time to look all this up and I don't want to fill my head full of potential inaccuracies which I'm then going to turn around and repeat as truths.
If wanted to read some epic soap opera that takes place in the early 1800's why would I pick some modern Historical Fiction instead of just reading Tolstoy's War & Peace?
I prefer reading articles and books by historians who tell you about the debates between different historians (the historiography) and what consensus there is, along with an overview of what evidence historians have to work with, as well as their own personal opinion. They can be biased too, but at least they give you context.
History is both an art and a science, there is a lot of interpretation going on and it's surprising how much we really don't know.
I see what you are saying, I've also read a lot of Sci-fi! I used to switch back and forth, one work of serious lit, then a Sci-fi book (mostly older stuff 1950-80's) I did this for quite a while but kept finding myself disappointed in the Sci-fi books. I think they are super cool, they have great ideas in them, lots of big picture questions on present and future humanity, what I found they lacked was the deep dives into the inner worlds of individual characters or treatises on hyper-realistic human societies and relationships. Sci-fi is definitely more plot driven and to show off world building and technology advancement. Not that Sci-fi has nothing to say, there's lots to say, but just maybe not what I am looking for.
Maybe it had more to do with the era of books I was reading, but Sci-Fi especially up to the 90's had a big problem with very poorly written female characters and when I tried to read more modern Sci-Fi it seems like a big part of it was who could write the most complicated plot with the most 'twists' and I had a hard time trying to follow those books, spending my time with the book just trying to figure out what was going on instead of absorbing the inner worlds of the characters.
Authors I really liked: Ursula K Le Guin as you mentioned had a real talent, I would consider her the closest thing to Sci-Fi Lit we have. Neal Stephenson but I liked his Historical Fiction more than his Sci-Fi, I read the entirety of The Baroque Cycle and loved it, also Cryptonomicon is great. Roger Zelazny wrote some really cool books, I read the entirety of Amber and books like 'Lord of Light' are really neat. H.G. Wells has a great catalogue of books. Kurt Vonnegut of course, Philip K Dick did some really neat thought experiment type books. Bradbury, Asimov (Foundation is really good), Clarke, Heinlein (but too much weird sex).
My favourite story ever is still Dan Simmons first 2 books of Hyperion, what a masterpiece of story telling and pacing.
Yep.
That is getting better though. The last decade or two of scifi and genre in general seems to have really expanded past its normal white dude authorship and I think its brought it to a whole new level. Try Becky Chambers, either Long Way to a Small Angry Planet for a chill space opera with real characters talking about their cultural differences. Or A Psalm for the Wild-Built for a chill post apocalyptic meditation.
Not new or chill, Another one I thought of: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. That one got me thinking a lot about the nature of humanity.
Stephenson is a favorite but the last two baroque cycles are the only books I haven't read yet. I read Quicksilver and thought it was great but needed a break it was so long, and I never went back.
I loved all the Hyperion books but I keep meaning to go back for a reread as there was so much and I can barely remember it all
I read most of the Asimov Heinlein Clark golden age stuff when I was teenager. I think its great but wouldn't have recommended any of that to someone who is interested in characters.
I haven't read any Zelazny, where should I start?
Thanks for the recommendations! As for Zelazny it's Lord of Light.
This may be true, but how have you observed this? It could be an interesting story.
Talking to a wide variety of people, some seem really interested in reflecting on life and the world around us and other people return blank stares. I hate to be judgemental and accuse people of having 'empty minds' and not being inquisitive, but I really struggle with it, some people genuinely seem uninterested in thinking about that kind of stuff (or at least are not interesting in talking about it). We seem to live in a world where we are just bombarded with so much cheap entertainment, unlimited music on Spotify, endless shorts on Tiktok, doom scrolling Reddit, where are the moments of quiet contemplation? I think it's healthy to be bored sometimes, gives you the room to think about yourself.
I dont know the people you are thinking of, but I would emphasize this possibility. You never really know whats going on in someone elses mind. Some people might just prefer thinking over interesting topics on their own vs discussing them with others.
I agree completely, I hate sounding like I'm insinuated that some people have 'empty minds' it really sounds awful. I wrote my comment over and over and kept deleting it because I kept feeling 'I sound like an asshole'. If literature has taught me anything it is that every one has a deep inner life and world.
It's pretty interesting to see this conclusion based on this question. I'll also add that the illiterate peasants were more critical, as they refused to take Luria at his word that "In the Far North, all bears are white." I'd have to see more about this study to feel confident in this conclusion, but to me it seems smarter to refuse to try, "explaining that they had never been to the north and thus couldn’t answer." I don't think this takes much away from the article's overall point (though I admit I've run out of time to read it and need to finish later), but it's worth thinking about. There's always value in staying grounded and not getting carried away from that by complex thought.
You can of course answer that question in terms of the premise without addressing whether the premise is true. It follows from the premise that the bears of Novaya Zemlya are white, regardless of whether you are critical of the idea that they actually are. I know little about the fauna of Novaya Zemlya, but I understand it as a hypothetical syllogism, and it seems to me that the difference was that the literate peasants recognized it as such as well, while the illiterate peasants did not.
Case in point, we both reason about this account as though it happened as told even though we weren't there to experience it, and we both form hypothetical ideas about the implications of the result as presented. We accept it as true for the sake of the argument and we build ideas on it. That is immensely useful.
Now, I think it's much more dubious whether it was due to a lack of literacy that these peasants didn't understand the question. It could as well be that people that for some reason hadn't had a pressing need or interest to learn to read and write probably haven't had a pressing need or interest to engage in that level abstract thinking either for that same reason. If you have a busy day-to-day life that can mostly be understood in terms of your own experience and the knowledge that has been handed down for generations maybe you have no need or time for reading nor that kind of deductive reasoning.
There is value in a grounded perspective, but a peasantry that is either incapable or uninterested in engaging in abstract, hypothetical thinking seems like it would be less than ideal in a democratic society.
One of the people who got me into neuropsychology! I'm pretty sure this study is reported in his book Cognitive Development but can't swear to it.
This seems like a good place to recommend an excellent science fiction novel called Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis, who also wrote The Hustler, The Color of Money, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The Queen’s Gambit.
It takes place in a future where reading is forgotten. A college professor who teaches Ancient Cinema stumbles on an archive of silent films and realizes that the occasional sequences depicting static shapes on a background are pictures of words and proceeds to learn how to read. When he teaches someone else to read, it turns out that reading isn’t just forgotten, it’s illegal.
Of course, the book is really about the culture of anti-intellectualism that was building up steam in America in the late 1970s when the book was written. Also, robots!
I enjoyed reading through this and did like the different facets of this issue that the author explored. I'm personally of the mind that social media, phones in our pockets, and shortening attention spans is a different beast than prior inventions that changed communication, like the early internet, TV, radio, the printing press, novels, etc. However, I am curious how we'll look back in 50 years and if we'll as a society generally think that novels were silly or niche when you could instead listen to an audiobook or read a synopsis.
I personally still enjoy reading, but even I admittedly read far fewer novels nowadays than I used to. I definitely read more words than I used to, considering I code for a living, I read news articles, I'm on discord all the time, etc., but those all seem part of my boring everyday life instead of exploring a world through a piece of fiction and using my imagination (imagination being another topic the author touched on and one facet of why books may be important to us as a species and something that social media lacks).
One thing I thought about while reading this was that reading as a hobby in your own free time seems less important to me than having a hobby to enjoy in your free time. I agree that literacy is becoming a problem, not in that people can't understand words, but that people can't understand the meaning behind them or critically think. That said, one thing I've definitely noticed in society is that many people don't have any creative hobbies at all or they won't talk about them. When I meet new people, it's always "what do you do for a living", not "what do you enjoy doing in your free time?" When we introduce a new hire at work, they talk about their work and their family, but never mention their hobbies, etc.
I don't read as many books as I used to, but I paint, I play board games, I play video games and not just for shallow experiences (though I absolutely still enjoy games like CoD), but I love games with deeper themes, as well. I think one important thing to think about is that if we're seeing a reduction in reading as a society, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing as long as people are finding some creative outlet. However, I know many people that just do not do anything creative or ever let their brain run wild. They'll consume TV or movies and not really discuss them after or think about themes. That's the larger problem than specifically reading, I think. Creative outlets that aren't reading can lead people towards those critical thinking patterns that we think we're losing as a society. I get it, it's hard to find the time for a hobby these days when work crushes at least a third of our week and so many other things demand our time. I speak as someone with the privilege of time, since I'm single, have no kids, have a good work life balance, etc., but I do think everybody needs a hobby, especially a non-screen hobby, even if it isn't reading.
That’s pretty normal, historically. There’s a reason there’s a bunch of people named Baker or Smith - it was the norm for your occupation to be your identity in the past. That was your role in society, and it consumed all of your time. Only the very wealthy could have things like hobbies.
The fact that leisure time is considered the norm is a modern invention. Perhaps a good one, but it’s not something that we use to have and lost. It’s the other way around.
That's a very good point. In some regards, the wheel will keep turning even if people don't have hobbies, don't read, etc., even if the decline in literacy is seen as a negative (to me, it most certainly is). In some regards, the problems we face are problems humans have always faced. No time for hobbies because we need money to exist and the people that make the rules and run society are greedy and always want more. That's not new to 2026, though it still has aspects that are different than in 1026.
This article and people's comments have given me a lot to think about today, that's for sure.
This is something I can identify with for sure, I hate this question. I work in the trades, whenever someone asks me what I do for a living and I answer that I'm in the trades I can feel myself judged and can feel they instantly think less of me intellectually. I don't give a shit about my job and I'm only working for a paycheque so I usually try and answer 'who cares?', that will throw people for a loop because a lot of people incorporate what they do for a living as a large part of who they think of themselves as. I try to define myself by my hobbies and interests, my passions. Electrical work is not my passion, reading literature is.
Exactly, I code for a living, but I do zero coding outside of work. Ask me about my miniature painting or disc golf or something else, instead! Why do people care or want to know where I work? I mean, they probably don’t, it’s just a cultural norm to ask. I make it a point to ask people about their hobbies or their life instead.
Embrace working in a trade!
I say ignore the haters, tell them exactly what you do for a living and then after tell them who you really are.
I repair industrial machinery for a living. I literally have 2 weeks worth of uniforms with blue collars.
I don't mind telling people at all. For one I'm proud that I do something real and don't just go to meetings and send emails all day. I'm also proud because I'm good at it.
I like being underestimated. I don't have a degree, and will be up front about that if it comes up. I read a lot and have a lot of surface level knowledge in all kinds of niche, intellectual type stuff. I'm happy to organically demonstrate my knowledge or value and surprise people if they stick around. If they silently judge and move on that's fine. If they ask more questions I can tell them all kinds of stuff they probably don't know about how things are manufactured. Or we could talk about Steinbeck or linear algebra, or whatever they do for a living or hobby.
Dynamic people like us who can do a hard dirty job AND engage in abstract intellectual interests are the best of both worlds IMO. "Renaissance men" (Or rather Renaissance people).
Also, I work for myself/freelance, and I make a pretty decent income.
I think most tradesmen earn well in our current economy, at least relative to office jobs. Electricians have unique skills that are undeniably valuable to human civilization. A lot of trades are likely be the last jobs to get replaced by AI. They require intelligence, creativity, flexibility, and dexterity.
Are you a Millwright by trade? I'm specifically an Industrial Electrician, Foreman of a shop that builds PLC/Drive panels for all sorts of industries, I also fix CNC machines (The panel shop is only one division of a larger company that does industrial manufacturing and machining, we have all sorts of CNC machines spanning the 1980's all the way to brand new. It's a great job and I enjoy it, but I'd still rather not be doing it and will retire the moment it's possible.
Wow, that's funny our jobs are so related. I had assumed you were a building electrician.
And we both like reading/scifi!
Yeah, I'm kind of a millwright. But I feel a little imposter syndrome whenever that terms comes up, it sounds so official and I never had any formal training.
I started in 2004 working for a small company that rebuilt machines. I learned how to hand scrape and align axis ways, like on bridgeport mills to start and then bigger stuff. But I kind of sucked at scraping, it would take me twice as many hours to finish as everyone else.
I found I was better at diagnosing electrical issues and fixing weird, old, or custom machines that no one understood. CNC and manual mills/lathes, presses, shears, etc. a little bit of everything. I also got into retrofitting old machines with PLCs, VFDs etc. We had a sister company that did fanuc retrofits on CNC machines. I helped with those back in the day but still haven't gotten to do a full CNC retrofit on my own yet. I modify machines to add features or automate things. And I built a few custom machines from scratch.
I've been working for myself for 5 years now. I still do basic repairs, alignment and relocating machines. Anything that doesn't have factory support anymore, either cause it's too old or it was built in house by a guy who retired in the 80s, etc. That can be rewarding sometimes. But I am thinking about how to transition away from basic repair and only do the fun custom stuff. I'm afraid to let the repair work go as the custom stuff can be fickle and I don't want to be caught without customers.
I'm in Los Angeles and I think that is a part of my success. most people are surprised to hear how much manufacturing is in LA . Lots of aerospace and space stuff, plus the regular misc. But there is barely anyone in this area that knows how to work on machines. It seems like the east coast/rust belt has a lot more technicians like me.
Because you might be the only one on tildes who could appreciate it, I PMed you an album of my latest project.
10+ years ago I built two custom machines for this customer in Altadena that makes these tiny wooden parts. Last year they lost their building to these huge fires we had. So we had to scramble to get production back up. Rather than start from scratch again I had them buy a CNC mill(Tormach 1500mx). I designed a fixture that could mount on the table to make their parts. I used the mill itself to make the fixture. Then because its a linuxCNC control, I was able to dig into the code and reroute the IO so I can have Gcode operate the fixture along with the other axes. The time crunch was stressful but otherwise it was a really fun project. This year they bought a 2nd mill to increase production. I get to design v1.1 and fix all the mistakes I made on the first one.
In education, the solutions are relatively simple. Assign reading to kids, follow them up with reading quizzes that can't be reliably spoofed from SparkNotes (ex: who said this? this excerpt happened after which of the following plot points? etc). Then fail the kids who can't pass. For some reason we can't converge on the notion that education should educate, and we see the inevitable fruit.
On the other hand this is exactly what kills reading for fun for kids: being tested on what they read. A similar thing happens in language learning at school.
I suppose you mean quizzes administered in person, proctored, live with no machine assistance and different for every class?
That requires a lot of resources and being aligned between educator and parents. Public education like you said doesn't aim to educate but to graduate, unfortunately, even if the teacher is given enough resources to ensure the child is doing their part of receiving education
The sway that (a loud minority of) parents have over the school system is in large part responsible for the degradation of public (and even private to some extent) education. This is in some ways a side effect of living in a democratic republic, as opposed to a social democracy, in the sense that families have the room to vote with their feet and the public education system accommodates this "marketplace" of preference. Deciding the exact right way to educate is an extremely difficult practical and philosophical problem, and so there is a sensibility in having it decentralized. But, at least culturally, we need to converge on the value of literacy and basic numeracy and probably be pretty strict in making it happen, if a well-informed citizenry is essential to a well-functioning republic. As the article mentions, America was once fairly impressive in its education system relative to the rest of the world. Now, we're quite behind.
Those parents are like that because society has moved decent middle class life behind university and professional jobs. If a person working full time at a grocery store can support a spouse and kids, we wouldn't have these kinds of "how dare you give my kid a B" parents.
In the end the fault again lies with the ultra wealthy who have extracted living wages out of our society. They made society into a gladiator ring first: of course parents have to readjust and stop viewing school as education, and instead think of it as a cruel hunger game of hurdles keeping their kids from a decent life.
I guess, but this also applies to elementary and middle school, where grades literally make no difference on college admissions. As far as I see, it's a cultural phenomenon more than anything else.
Make poetry great again!
I mean, if we can’t keep our attention for longer than the average TikTok video of 30 seconds, then maybe we can make poetry the new hot thing to read? Only takes half a minute to read a good poem and if you like it, no hassle needed to turn the page to read it again.
We used to tell stories with epic poetry. Handed down from each generation and memorized with the aid of rhyme .
Then we invented this new fangled technology (reading, writing, paper, etc.) and modern humans can't even recite Beowulf anymore! Surely that signals the decline of human civilization.
I always feel bad when I don't finish these articles, but I realized about 25% through that I was not really interested in the rest of the article. Am I part of the problem dot jpeg
I felt exactly this when I noticed I had glossed over this bit:
I chuckled then forced myself to read it.
This is why lumping all this in as illiteracy is ridiculous. This is The Atlantic, we all know their conventions, and you probably read up to the start of the quote, contextually realized that you didn't need to read it to get the point, and moved on. That is good media literacy, not even necessarily an indicator of low attention span, let alone a sign of poor literacy. But kids are being deprived of being taught how to learn things like that.
Yep. I wonder if it was an intentional "gotcha": the author knew it didn't matter, that it was an overly verbose sentence, and that it would make readers feel bad the way I did (just enough to think of it as ironic).
Great movie by the way
I think this article uses a good 6000 words more than necessary to get its point across. Kind of the Atlantic's vibe, unfortunately. I appreciate the nuance and extra context, since short news articles always leave me wanting more, but I think it's perfectly valid to dislike this rambly tone. I always hate a story/vibe article that opens with some unrelated background about the author getting dinner or something.
Same honestly, though I did come back to re-read the rest. It's not your fault imo. I think it's a fairly weak article that does contains a lot of good points, but also includes these long litanies of context-less statistics and trite, excessively teleological historical analysis, all without any real propulsive narrative to carry you through it. Like, the author ends the essay with her personal history of growing up loving literature, and then slowly losing the habit of reading to her phone. That's good stuff, I feel the sorrow there, I just wish more of the article had been that, instead of boring, affectless cultural commentary stringing together points I've heard before fifty different times.
I also really rolled my eyes when the author attempted to (dismissively) contrast 20th century classic Doctor Zhigavo with alleged modern YA trash Sunrise on the Reaping -- which I haven't read myself, but which my extremely smart (adult) brother loved for being sharp, political, and beautifully written in its own right -- and maybe the author realized this midway through the paragraph, because when she pulls a quote to demonstrate how bad modern lit is, she suddenly pivots to quoting romantasy instead. The article in my opinion needed at least one more pass to refine its arguments, there's a lot of that kind of rhetorical clumsiness there.
I was fascinated to hear that the author eschews text messages in favor of voice messages for communication with her friends. As someone who hates listening to audio from my phone (unless I've already put headphones in to intentionally listen to a podcast or music), yeeesh. I'd never be able to communicate like that! Hell, I get annoyed when people use voice-to-text because it always produces rambly and partially incoherent messages.
My little sister uses the voice messages too, I think it's a younger Zoomer thing maybe? I asked her about it once and she says it's easier then writing a long message when she just wants to ramble or work through something emotional which, sure, I guess. I love hearing her voice but it is a bit annoying to have to put in earbuds to continue the conversation. But maybe she finds my multiple-paragraph-long screeds annoying, too.
I mean... Text editing on phones is awful unless you have a physical keyboard. My comment on that post remains true almost three years later (minus me now using the Heliboard virtual keyboard, which has an undo/redo button).
There's like a mental barrier when typing on mobile versus having an actual keyboard. Words flow more easily with a physical keyboard, possibly because I'm not having to constantly pick out correct spellings or fix it capitalizing random words as I'm actively typing, and can edit it more easily. And I'm not limited to tiny textboxes that only show a few lines at a time (six to seven for this reply box). I honestly end up writing a bunch of longer messages in a text editing app just so I can see a full paragraph, or even copy them to a Google Doc called "Tildes Repository" so I can just take over writing on a computer.
Now that I think about it, a lot of Zoomers probably have more experience with touchscreen keyboards than actual keyboards, meaning they primarily know typing as a pain... That might contribute to the rise in shortform content.
I had basically the same take on typing as you do, until I developed a left hand tremor. Now the keyboard swipe on my phone is by far easier than typing on a pc keyboard! Kind of a bummer in itself, but at least there's a usable option for me.
Interesting article. I want to throw out there my own personal thoughts on how I've mourned my own personal loss of desire to read for fun. As a kid, reading was one of my main hobbies. The local library was a favorite spot of mine, and I'm grateful that I had parents who were willing to shuttle me there nearly every weekend. My imagination was (and still is, embarrassingly so) quite active, so books were a great outlet for that. It also put me well ahead of the curve at reading level compared to my peers all throughout primary school.
However, as with many other kids, my interest in reading for fun waned as a result of how the modern education system (and society in general) handles literacy. Although the process was gradual, my transition to high school was a pivotal time. The school sent a list of required summer reading for English class prior to starting 9th grade. I knocked out reading the novels early in the summer break and spent a bit of time refreshing on the main themes and plot points prior to the start of the year. The first day started off with a graded quiz where the majority of the questions focused on details like on the color of X's personal belonging or the exact time mentioned when X event occurred. Most people in the class completely bombed the quiz, and this was an English class for the highest performing kids from middle school. The teacher then "welcomed" us to high school and told us that this was only just the beginning.
From then on, how I read books changed. Fun was no longer a goal. Reading morphed into a refined process where I extracted what I needed to perform well. I started mentally tracking my reading speed and adjusted how much I read so that I didn't finish too quickly while pacing enough to prevent cramming. I actively suppressed the amount of imagining I did when I read because it might introduce false details in my memory. I focused on thinking what words, passages, or points were the highest candidates as material for teachers to lock onto.
Those skills carried me through the rest of high school, college, professional school, and my career. It's especially effective for reading textbooks, scientific articles, reference material, etc, which worked out since I work in STEM. But I lost the ability to pick up a novel and read for the sake of reading. I last tried to read a novel (Flowers for Algernon) about 15 years ago while I was at the courthouse for jury duty standby, and I couldn't stop myself from dissecting the book the way I would for school.
I don't blame that teacher or any other teacher from my primary school days; it's not as though I have any solutions to the problems educators face when combating the decline of literacy. That was the era of Sparknotes and Cliffnotes, so as an educator, he needed some way to "weed" out people who tried get away with not touching the novels at all. Outside of class, you can tell he was truly passionate about teaching, and he himself loved literature and media literacy as a whole. In fact, he was widely considered one of the best teachers at the school by the students for how his classes changed their perspective.
I have no problem reading when it's attached to other forms of entertainment. Video games, manga, shows/movies (subtitles are always on for me), forum posts/discussions, articles, etc. are all still enjoyable to me. But the moment I pick up a novel, my brain immediately starts counting the pages as if I'm back in school again. I still "love" books, and I've purchased plenty of books over the years to keep up the support for physical media. But they sit on a shelf as a backlog for if/when I'm able to overcome my hesitation.
Berkshire in absolute shambles.
(sorry, couldn't resist the jocular response, especially on a post about Reading).
Edit: Darn. I swear the original title used Reading capitalised :(
Second Edit: It did! Someone changed it :(
Does it really say “W enty-three” as the intro word?
Reading ain’t dead for me yet.
EDIT: I think it’s supposed to say “T wenty-three” as in “Twenty-three hundred years ago”. That just seems like a huge mess-up.
EDIT 2: They fixed it.