But all my friends on Goodreads are claiming to finish a book a week
Are... Are they LYING?? No one lies on the internet.
EDIT: Wow I guess I hit a, nerve. Sorry folks. I use Goodreads and finish about a book a month. So I don't think a book a week is unreasonable/impossible. I just meant to allude to the fact that the platform has gotten a lot of attention for review bombing and profile manipulation.
Anyways, here is some data (not MAU, to be fair) about US stats:
There was span of a couple years when I had to commute ~3 hours per day. I easily completed 1-2 audiobooks per week.
But more to your point, what percentage of the population do you think is active on goodreads? I can't find any MAU numbers for them, just total membership numbers. Regardless, it is a self-selecting audience. Much like if you go to a theater to see the latest garbage marvel movie, the people in that theater are probably very likely to have seen other marvel movies in the theater recently too.
Self-selection: Goodreads main function is to recommend a next book to read to people who like reading. No wonder Goodreads users read more than an average American.
a. the original poll this article is based on says that 1% of the US population reads 50+ books a week; 1% of 3.3*10^8 people is still a lot of people.
b. some books are much easier to read than others, are your friends just kicking back once a week with a competently-written potboiler in a genre they've been reading half their life, or are they reading one abstruse 800-page tome after another? Or are they reading kid's books to a child in their life?
Lying's certainly a possibility too, but so's marking something as "read" when you actually abandoned it somewhere before the end - and that's a spectrum too; when I read Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" I abandoned it about ten pages before the end but I'd still say I "read" it. If I'd only gotten ten pages in I wouldn't say that.
A lot higher than what I had thought. If only around 20% of Americans read a book, any book, within the ages 18-29, maybe the ranges outside of it make up for it?
It very much contradicts what I said earlier. Don't remember the source. The only difference is that this also includes listening to audio-books. 53% in 2023, for 18-29 year-old, according to your source. Thanks for the correction.
Why do we obsess so much over legacy form factors?
Watching movies, listening to 2h conference talks, playing a 60h narrative videogame, and reading scientific papers in PDF may not be as noble, but they are equally meaningful to me.
Well, can you name a computer game that is a great artistic work? There are many that are good, but I can't say there are any that are on a par with, say, "The Lord of the Rings" or "War and Peace" or "1984".
There are many innovative and critically acclaimed titles in the independent game scene, though they are obviously judged on different criteria by taking advantage of the interactive medium. Inside, Disco Elysium, and Kentucky Route Zero, just to name a few.
Mainstream gaming is still getting there, but to me titles like The Last of Us Part 2 are on par with classic HBO shows like Six Feet Under.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one great artistic work. If you haven't played it, you haven't experienced the peak of a massive wildly recognized medium. Last of Us (the show) was essentially copied verbatim from the video game, scene for scene.
On the entire opposite side of the complexity spectrum, both Limbo and Inside are great artistic works.
That's a great question. It's a mixture of technical skill and intellectual depth.
For example, throughout Scotland placenames are a mixture of old Gaelic, modern Gaelic and Norse, and then there are the Anglicised versions on top. So learning what placenames mean is something I did in school and it's a fascinating subject.
So when Gildor is talking with Frodo, and mentions the "...Branduin, that you call the Brandywine..." (quote from memory; might not be correct), that's exactly what happens with placenames. It's that level of depth (in all aspects, this is just an example) that makes it a great work. You can read more on just the name of a river at https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Baranduin
Enjoyment of art is, as you say, totally subjective, but anyone who's artistic can generally identify when something is a great work even if they don't personally like it.
Everything has shortcomings but as a work of literature lotr is very obviously a great artistic work and the fact that you don't know that tells me immediately that you've never produced anything worthwhile.
Posterity only remembers the most acclaimed pieces, there are plenty of airport novels no one remembers and that have nothing to envy to modern Tiktok.
Yes, there are. I made a deliberate decision about 10 years ago to only read good novels just because I'd read so many terrible ones! But I'm hoping my question will lead to some good narrative game recommendations.
I have read many books and seen many movies that I feel are worse artistic works than the best games, but I also think it's a hard comparison to make.
There is no music that compares to "War and peace" or paintings like "1984", nor is the movie "Alien" like any book. Describing H R Gigers monster design with words will not have the same artistic impact.
I think different creations can be be great artistic works on entirely incomparable axes.
please play gorogoa for an artsy, moving puzzle game.
(for me personally the benchmark is the last express, but i guess generally reviews are mixed but please take a look, too)
The depth of a book is vastly different than the 10min youtube video summarizing said book. I’ve tried both modern and legacy form factors and honestly I’m on camp book more and more as the years go on.
The modern stuff feels like total fluff compared to a book, which in turn feel like total fluff compared to the academic papers it is based on. These days I would rather spend 2 hours reading a good book or paper than 10 minutes watching an engagement-optimized edutainment video.
And for the really good stuff you have to go even more legacy – conversation with an expert. A medium older even than books. That’s where you get the stuff that hasn’t made it into papers yet, let alone the downstream half-digested edutainment stuff.
Hey if you’re getting the depth of a book, it’s a book no matter the format. My objection is to surface level edutainment formats that feed your brain chicken nuggets but trick you into thinking it was steak.
Lots of surface level books that are the length of a book and the value of a 5min tiktok too.
I got back into reading books after a long hiatus and was pleasantly surprised by how much I missed them. The depth of thought and nuance is just totally different than an article or youtube video. I still consume plenty of modern media but feel like I get more out of books on average.
For anyone who wants to get back into reading books my advice is to start with whatever sounds fun. A lot of people fall into a trap of feeling like they need to read something useful or serious and just get turned off to the idea. But reading lighter books are still great and provide a lot that you won't get from tv and similar mediums. Over time your interests will evolve naturally into new areas.
Yes. Same thing applies: the book is deeper and more nuanced than the movie. There’s just more room.
Modern 8 to 10 episode series can get close to being as nuanced as a good book. You simply need space to go deep, no amount of cleverness will help you do that in a short format.
I think books are still the best way for a single mind to communicate complex ideas. Movies and games are teamwork, many ideas from several people (for better and worse).
Maybe generative AI will get to the point where a single author can create a comic, movie or game with similar depths as that of books but it hasn't yet.
I dont think so. For "great works" all that stuff has been covered somewhere if you really care.
You're putting way too much faith into people's intelligence (or projecting your own onto them) if you think people are picking up the nuanced bits just by reading.
Which still to the thread starts point. All of that stuff could be captured in a diff medium and to my point if it's worth capturing in the first place can be summarized and the additional stuff you're mentioning written as bullet points.
Reading a good book is a closest approximation we have to actually meeting the author in person. There are books that I read years ago that had such a big emotional impact they probably affected my personality in some way. I barely remember a single youtube video I watched last week.
This is a process vs product issue. Yes, the product ("here's what this is / is about") can be captured wherever, but the process of engagement is the valuable bit.
Of course no one - no matter how intelligent! - will pick up every bit of nuance. That's why engaging with what other people think (also a process!) about [whatever] is an important part of skill development. I don't think anyone is incapable of engaging in this - even if their sophistication will always be limited by their intelligence / affinity / time / etc etc etc.
This is a useful paradigm under which to consider other skills. Computer code (product) is (approaching...) wide availability from LLMs, but the skills necessary to be a good developer come through a process that involves independently solving problems and asking questions that have (at least at first!) already been addressed by others.
Hardly it almost always a shortened more approachable summary of something described in a book. Also (IMHO) videos are a horrible format for transferring knowledge, it’s slow AF compared to reading and impossible to search, you have to consume it mostly sequentially
Sure, you could buy a book about snes (not even sure if any good ones exist) and read about that... but you're not that interested into the topic, because it's something old and not something you'll actually do... but here's a 6 minute video, that you'll probably watch... and if it's interesting, you'll go down a playlist and see "how thing were done" "back then" and learn something new.
Ever heard of Tefifon music player? Neither have I, until i saw the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqfVS6ahArs ... i would have never bought a book on ancient music players, but I learned something new by watching a short video.
Sometimes all you need is a summary, you're not a chemist, SNES programmer or an old music player collector, but you still learn a lot, and all those things are topics, where you just don't buy a book, because th 10, 20 minute video covers all that you need and want to know.
There’s no such decline in consumption. There’s always been a horde of illiterate people among the lower classes because decoding written letters is a very abstract and complicated intellectual activity.
A few centuries ago, the illiteracy rate was way higher. But it’s always been mostly been niche activity for intelligent people, that’s why the school used to focus on training that skill
Perhaps it doesn't have to be reading only a book, and you could very well be reading a scientific paper instead. But reading engages a whole different category of your psyche. I believe that most valuable content is often found in the form of a book rather than a movie. Perhaps there are more books to be read than there movies to be watched. But I hear you; these are much more meaningful than mindlessly scrolling away elsewhere.
I assume that of that 46% most aren't reading papers or watching good informative YouTube. They're likely doom scrolling social media or watching entertainment YouTube.
Movies and games are fine if you're comparing to fiction and just relaxing.
As someone who does all the things, reading (even listening to audio books) feels different to me. I get more out of it.
Reading is an active skill vs watching something is more passive. There’s lots of pathways in your brain that intensive reading lights up compared to other mediums. And lots of studies show that you retain more information and building stronger informational connections when reading vs watching.
No one is telling you to stop watching movies or playing video games, but being a more active participant in a leisure activity can be beneficial every once in a while.
Any suggestions on a puzzle game like that? I recently finished Stephen's Sausage Roll (excellent game!) and I've been looking for something else that will let me feel clever.
You might be playing AAA games or what I call "film-games" in that case .. Good games for me are extremely player driven, the player has total volition and is free to plot, plan, use their imagination, come up with their own original plan of action and implement it. Good examples of that are Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program.
Player driven games like that are actually making the best use the medium and it's special quality of interactivity. Film-games really want to be films and are trying to awkwardly cram elements of the medium of drama into the medium of games which is really gonna hurt the end result, even if they do stellar work, they are starting from a huge disadvantage by working against their chosen medium.
It does depend heavily on the game. There are games that involve a lot of farming where I think reading a book problem results in larger brain activity.
Puzzle games like the witness engage the brain much more.
I do read a lot, but I don't completely agree that reading is an active skill all the time. It also depends on what one is reading. When I am reading a fast paced thriller or page turner , it doesn't feel like a very active skill/activity.
The activity in this context isn’t just that you are reading, it’s that you have to interpret what is written into scenes in your imagination. This is also required when listening to books or podcasts. This is partly why they show much of the same benefits from reading are also gained from listening to books and kids being read to by their parents.
Fair enough; I shouldn’t have said “everyone” because that’s obviously not true, but only pedantically, for the most part. It’s not insensitive to say “everyone has a nose” and mean “except the very small percentage of people that don’t have noses due to birth defects, trauma, or genetics”.
1-3% of people have aphantasia. That’s not everyone, but it’s close.
Throughout my life, I thought "mind's eye" was a metaphor, and that people didn't actually see images in their heads. When I discovered aphantasia was a thing, and that I had it, I also accepted it was rare. But turns out, about a third of my male friends also have it. Not one female friend has it, though. It's a pity there isn't much research on the subject.
The fact that you control the pace in your page turner example is part of what makes reading active instead of passive. You don't really get that watching a documentary or listening to a lecture or podcast
As you know games can be incredibly informative even though they usually aren't.
I learned history in a way that sticks much better from Europa Universalis and Total War than from books, even though those games aren't even real in the sense that you're making up a new timeline. Orbital mechanics only clicked for me when trying to land a rover on the Mun in KSP.
Maybe entertaining simulations are the second-best way to learn besides actually doing something, with books somewhere further down the line.
I've met a lot more people who were profoundly misled about history by paradox/4x games than those who were meaningfully educated by them. acoup actually has a good series of blogs about how they serve as a form of historical education, which is worth reading through:
You don't learn the actual facts of what happened of course.
But you do learn about the situation in which different countries and historical figures found themselves and the options they had.
This is much more valuable because this type of learning has lessons for today; versus merely memorizing that king such-and-such did this-and-that in 1523, which doesn't.
Based on recent HN threads, sounds like a large percentage of scientific papers are pure fiction. At least books on Goodreads have public reviews and a simple star rating.
Watching movies and playing video games are not required to be well rounded and interesting and they do not provide the same intellectual stimulus that reading papers and watching smart people give lectures do.
Not required but it is very likely that if all one does is read papers and watches other smart people give lectures, they are pretty one dimensional and would be an awful dinner guest unless surrounded by other similarly one dimensional people. Same would be true if all one did was watch movies or play video games.
I agree, one could read a load of crappy books.
The actual quality of specifically what you are reading / watching / playing matters a lot imo.
You will learn a lot more playing Kerbal Space Program than you will reading Harry Potter books for example.
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death makes a good case about how long-form written exposition is uniquely superior to all those modern mediums.
There's too much that's either unsaid or can't be said in those other mediums. The mediums themselves even preclude any kind of depth due to their very nature, constraints, whether they be financial constraints, distribution, time-slot scarcity (as in a T.V. series), etc. Many seemingly educational works become vapid infotainment (TED Talks, History/Discovery networks, videogames can maybe be narrative, but the essence of it is always the gameplay).
I think his thesis was directed more at the importance of non-fiction expositions, but I feel it's just as applicable to works of fiction, which are oftentimes even better at expounding important ideas, philosophies, etc. than non-fiction works.
I thought Amusing Ourselves to Death was really interesting. I almost agree with it, but I reject his basic thesis that the medium so rigidly defines the form of content. It was written in the 80s, and he seems to say that television shows and broadcast news, as they existed in the 80s, are the only way way for video to exist (namely, episodic TV shows and news made of short and jarring cuts). I basically agree that that format is less intellectually sophisticated than longer forms, but I don't think that form is limited by the television set. As time has passed and "television" is a more amorphous concept, maybe that is clearer. But that short, attention-getting format is driven by profit, especially ad revenue. I think one only needs to watch a good documentary to challenge the author's central thesis. But I think a lot of the book actually holds up well and can be mapped onto streaming and social media. I think it pairs well with Manufacturing Consent.
It may be old, but calling it "legacy" implied it's an old relic we should abandon.
I'll say that the opposite is the case. We should be reading more, and do less of passive activities such as watching movies or listening to conferences (where its very easy to zone out and not get any useful transfer).
I think reading fiction has merit on its own. It's an active process where you have to fill in all the gaps of an imaginary world. This makes you take a hypothetical situation seriously, even if it is unreasonable at face value (magic doesn't exist, astrophage aren't real). Taking hypothetical situations seriously expands your ability to reason over anything, including abstract things.
Overall I think this readers to become more reasonable people, because life is full of unreasonable things. Things we can't explain, things that seem silly, but we nevertheless have to grapple with them.
Other fiction can fulfill a similar role, but I suspect that books are better at it because they require the reader to put in more effort.
What exactly do consider to be "legacy" (I presume as a pejorative) about books? At first blush they remain the most advanced type of narrative money can buy.
> Why do we obsess so much over legacy form factors?
We shouldn't. We also don't, not really. Reading books has a certain prestige, but by almost any measure, we "obsess" more about movies and/or tv shows. Even some of the best selling books of all time probably have orders of magnitude less exposure than tv shows, movies or games. Not unrelatedly, far more people talk about TV shows and games, etc.
I think the only obsession is that some people consider books to be "better" in some sense. Personally, I don't think books are better, just different. I enjoy TV shows and movies as much as I enjoy books, and consider them to both be important. (I don't play many games, which I think truly is me missing out!)
On a side note, Benjamin Franklin is a wildly fascinating person. I highly recommend Walter Isaacon's biography of him. One of the most interesting (in a good way) humans I know of. I think most people would be surprised at how well they can relate to a man who lived in the 18th century. Check out his humorous essay on farting[1] if you want to laugh.
As someone who listens to a _lot_ of audio books, I'll admit that the majority of them are quite entertaining but are definitely not worth vaunting over other forms of entertainment. Most of the more intellectually demanding reading I do tends to not even come from books, but rather from things like academic papers, blog posts, and long form articles.
46% didn’t read a book, or didn’t finish a book? There’s a distinction between the two, and I’m in the latter. Have several unfinished at the moment. I don’t feel guilty though, I read all day, busy job, young kids, life. By the time I sit down to read a book, I’m head nodding within minutes. I look forward to retirement some day.
Pages 124, 130, and 131 of the crosstab are fascinating.
From page 124, the 4 indicators that you probably read a book are Race (white), Income (100k+), Voter registration status (registered), and party/ideology (not a centrist).
Yes, this is much more informative. The real separation is college degrees. Only 27% with a college degree read no books, whereas 56% with no college degree read no books. Once you get into 1+ book categories, the degree separation is much smaller.
Here is a more in depth article which presumably is interpreting the same statistics [0].
Note that mystery, crime, romance and history were among the top genres. I would venture that many more Americans watch mystery, crime, romance and history shows than the 46%.
To me, this borders on trying to draw conclusions from sensationalist titles like "only 10% of all Americans listen to the town cryer for news". There are other forms of media that people use to consume information or entertainment.
I don't fully place the blame on people. Lack of investment in edication and infrastructure and other social support structures means people are robbed of time, relaxation, stress free financial and healthcare situations, etc. There's also addictions to smarphones, tablets, and video games due to lax regulation and unbridled capitalism.
I'm not sure how I feel about conflating audio-book consumption with reading. In my experience, when I listen to a book it goes in one ear and out the other; any studies that show information retention between the two?
Of course you have to actually listen. Audiobooks are fantastic when you're driving or washing dishes or doing any kind of manual work. They're pointless if you're trying to read something else with your eyes at the same time, or if you're otherwise distracted.
With those caveats, I have zero difficulty absorbing an audiobook. The only thing I'd say is that the narrator's performance definitely colors your impression of the book, for better or worse or just...different.
My understanding is that book bestseller lists are essentially just opinions, e.g. NYT has a select list of book stores they contact to gather sales information. There are no industry-wide sales metrics, unlike the music industry.
From what I've read, this is why you never see Christian literature on the top seller lists. The Christian publishing industry is absolutely massive and would consistently dominate any objective top sellers list.
I read a lot but I can't think of a book I read last year.
I don't think "didn't read a book" is that useful for inference about imagination, literacy, education etc., unless it's also matched by watching an enormous amount of linear or episodic television.
"Didn't read a book" might, however, be a meaningful proxy for shorter attention spans. I think it could be in my case, even though I read voraciously.
I have a hard time believing 54% did read a book. 18% of the U.S. population is functionally illiterate, and I don't know for you, I really don't feel like reading a book after I work the whole day at a computer.
Same. As with all self-reported data, expected some lying shame-driven responses.
I also found myself having a lot less time to read after having a child. I've only started again this year because I feel like doomscrolling in bed is not the best way to fall asleep.
Between work and kids it just has to go. I am also blessed with no sleeping problems which means that I fall asleep the moment i go to bed. I try to read at least one book per year during vacation.
I read so much when I was younger.
I am not certain I will get the habit back when I get older.
Or could it could instil good habits in your children? Obviously looking after/active okay with kids is better, but I don’t see it being selfish to also enjoy yourself and encourage a valuable hobby in them too. It’s hard being a parent, make time for things you enjoy too!
I need it even more after all day on a computer. I need an off ramp for my brain to wind down. I read before bed every night. I honestly don’t understand how some don’t.
> 18% of the U.S. population is functionally illiterate
N.B. This stat appears to pertain to English language literacy, not literacy per se. Some of those 18%ers might be reading Dante in the original Italian or Shakespeare in the original Klingon.
I used to read quite often, in the days before YouTube and internet. I still read a lot online, but it's not the same experience as getting deeply absorbed in a book for a few hours.
These days I'll often read a book or two on vacation, but not always.
I have a curated list of books from Gutenberg on my phone and read them when I have 20 min to spare. Works really well. Sure I also spend hours just reading every now and then, sure I do not read many books but a lot more than two per vacation.
I've actively come back to this way of reading books the last 15 years, the key is to make it easy to read books and not having any notifications.
I was in a computer program in high-school which required good grades to be in and some teenagers would just pretend to read the books and get a synopsis online. I wouldn't be surprised if they literally never read a book in their whole life. And those were not dumb or illiterate people.
I have found a high correlation in my life between book reading and general happiness.
When I am in a period when I am reading books regularly, I am generally happy. Things are going well, I have good life balance.
When I go a stretch without reading books, I am generally stressed out and in burnout mode at work, and home life is not great.
Note - this is generally fiction. I read very little non fiction.
Note 2 - most people I know have no books in evidence in their homes. Maybe they read Kindle or other ebooks? But I think many simply do not read recreationally.
I'm in the minority but I moved so many times that when I finally got a Kindle I just gave away every book I owned so I didn't have to haul hundreds of pounds of dead tree. Now I manage a calibre server.
I feel the same way. I think part of it that I’m not being drained by doomscrolling and instead, engaging my brain in a positive way. Another part is knowing that I’m using my time in a way that I value. I feel inspired.
Like going to the gym, it’s easy to go a long stretch without reading once you stop, and fall into effortless habits again.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 147 ms ] threadAre... Are they LYING?? No one lies on the internet.
EDIT: Wow I guess I hit a, nerve. Sorry folks. I use Goodreads and finish about a book a month. So I don't think a book a week is unreasonable/impossible. I just meant to allude to the fact that the platform has gotten a lot of attention for review bombing and profile manipulation.
Anyways, here is some data (not MAU, to be fair) about US stats:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/most_read?category=all&countr...
People with children are often lucky to have 30 minutes for themselves.
But more to your point, what percentage of the population do you think is active on goodreads? I can't find any MAU numbers for them, just total membership numbers. Regardless, it is a self-selecting audience. Much like if you go to a theater to see the latest garbage marvel movie, the people in that theater are probably very likely to have seen other marvel movies in the theater recently too.
a. the original poll this article is based on says that 1% of the US population reads 50+ books a week; 1% of 3.3*10^8 people is still a lot of people.
b. some books are much easier to read than others, are your friends just kicking back once a week with a competently-written potboiler in a genre they've been reading half their life, or are they reading one abstruse 800-page tome after another? Or are they reading kid's books to a child in their life?
Lying's certainly a possibility too, but so's marking something as "read" when you actually abandoned it somewhere before the end - and that's a spectrum too; when I read Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" I abandoned it about ten pages before the end but I'd still say I "read" it. If I'd only gotten ten pages in I wouldn't say that.
I haven't read a book for a few years. Don't have time. I don't think it's a big deal.
Here: https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/48239-54-per...
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor...
Watching movies, listening to 2h conference talks, playing a 60h narrative videogame, and reading scientific papers in PDF may not be as noble, but they are equally meaningful to me.
I'd love to hear of one that was though.
Mainstream gaming is still getting there, but to me titles like The Last of Us Part 2 are on par with classic HBO shows like Six Feet Under.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one great artistic work. If you haven't played it, you haven't experienced the peak of a massive wildly recognized medium. Last of Us (the show) was essentially copied verbatim from the video game, scene for scene.
On the entire opposite side of the complexity spectrum, both Limbo and Inside are great artistic works.
What makes LotR a "great artistic work"? What makes Stardew Valley not a "great artistic work"?
Just like some books, films, or other art can resonate and have a profound impact on a person, so can video games.
That's a great question. It's a mixture of technical skill and intellectual depth.
For example, throughout Scotland placenames are a mixture of old Gaelic, modern Gaelic and Norse, and then there are the Anglicised versions on top. So learning what placenames mean is something I did in school and it's a fascinating subject.
So when Gildor is talking with Frodo, and mentions the "...Branduin, that you call the Brandywine..." (quote from memory; might not be correct), that's exactly what happens with placenames. It's that level of depth (in all aspects, this is just an example) that makes it a great work. You can read more on just the name of a river at https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Baranduin
Enjoyment of art is, as you say, totally subjective, but anyone who's artistic can generally identify when something is a great work even if they don't personally like it.
Edit: if you like this kind of stuff, there are also some cool blog posts on the logistics of the Battle of Gonder: https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondo...
As literature goes it has tons of shortcomings.
Tell me I'm wrong.
There is no music that compares to "War and peace" or paintings like "1984", nor is the movie "Alien" like any book. Describing H R Gigers monster design with words will not have the same artistic impact.
I think different creations can be be great artistic works on entirely incomparable axes.
The modern stuff feels like total fluff compared to a book, which in turn feel like total fluff compared to the academic papers it is based on. These days I would rather spend 2 hours reading a good book or paper than 10 minutes watching an engagement-optimized edutainment video.
And for the really good stuff you have to go even more legacy – conversation with an expert. A medium older even than books. That’s where you get the stuff that hasn’t made it into papers yet, let alone the downstream half-digested edutainment stuff.
Yep, it appears that the deepest format we have today is long-form hypertext. Often containing a few 10min videos itself.
Some people do equate those with books, but it's far from unanimous.
Lots of surface level books that are the length of a book and the value of a 5min tiktok too.
For anyone who wants to get back into reading books my advice is to start with whatever sounds fun. A lot of people fall into a trap of feeling like they need to read something useful or serious and just get turned off to the idea. But reading lighter books are still great and provide a lot that you won't get from tv and similar mediums. Over time your interests will evolve naturally into new areas.
Modern 8 to 10 episode series can get close to being as nuanced as a good book. You simply need space to go deep, no amount of cleverness will help you do that in a short format.
Maybe generative AI will get to the point where a single author can create a comic, movie or game with similar depths as that of books but it hasn't yet.
If you enjoy reading that's one thing but there's not much point otherwise.
Reading a summary of the book in Wikipedia/Blinkist/ChatGPT is definitely not the same as the reading book.
Sure, you may grasp at the central idea or argument superficially, but to understand it fully, with its caveats and nuances, and overarching context?
You can regurgitate but not assimilate.
You're putting way too much faith into people's intelligence (or projecting your own onto them) if you think people are picking up the nuanced bits just by reading.
Which still to the thread starts point. All of that stuff could be captured in a diff medium and to my point if it's worth capturing in the first place can be summarized and the additional stuff you're mentioning written as bullet points.
Of course no one - no matter how intelligent! - will pick up every bit of nuance. That's why engaging with what other people think (also a process!) about [whatever] is an important part of skill development. I don't think anyone is incapable of engaging in this - even if their sophistication will always be limited by their intelligence / affinity / time / etc etc etc.
This is a useful paradigm under which to consider other skills. Computer code (product) is (approaching...) wide availability from LLMs, but the skills necessary to be a good developer come through a process that involves independently solving problems and asking questions that have (at least at first!) already been addressed by others.
Hardly it almost always a shortened more approachable summary of something described in a book. Also (IMHO) videos are a horrible format for transferring knowledge, it’s slow AF compared to reading and impossible to search, you have to consume it mostly sequentially
Sure, you could buy a book about snes (not even sure if any good ones exist) and read about that... but you're not that interested into the topic, because it's something old and not something you'll actually do... but here's a 6 minute video, that you'll probably watch... and if it's interesting, you'll go down a playlist and see "how thing were done" "back then" and learn something new.
Ever heard of Tefifon music player? Neither have I, until i saw the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqfVS6ahArs ... i would have never bought a book on ancient music players, but I learned something new by watching a short video.
Ever heard of purple gold? Neither have I, again, until the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Pcp944sRI
Compare this to eg. book bestsellers: https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/combined-print-an...
Sometimes all you need is a summary, you're not a chemist, SNES programmer or an old music player collector, but you still learn a lot, and all those things are topics, where you just don't buy a book, because th 10, 20 minute video covers all that you need and want to know.
Certainly. However a text summary is still much more efficient (unless you’re watching the video mainly for entertainment).
A few centuries ago, the illiteracy rate was way higher. But it’s always been mostly been niche activity for intelligent people, that’s why the school used to focus on training that skill
Isn’t it? Weren’t people reading more books on average if we go back a decade or few?
Movies and games are fine if you're comparing to fiction and just relaxing.
As someone who does all the things, reading (even listening to audio books) feels different to me. I get more out of it.
How many people are reading scientific papers but zero books?
No one is telling you to stop watching movies or playing video games, but being a more active participant in a leisure activity can be beneficial every once in a while.
Player driven games like that are actually making the best use the medium and it's special quality of interactivity. Film-games really want to be films and are trying to awkwardly cram elements of the medium of drama into the medium of games which is really gonna hurt the end result, even if they do stellar work, they are starting from a huge disadvantage by working against their chosen medium.
It does depend heavily on the game. There are games that involve a lot of farming where I think reading a book problem results in larger brain activity.
Puzzle games like the witness engage the brain much more.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
1-3% of people have aphantasia. That’s not everyone, but it’s close.
I learned history in a way that sticks much better from Europa Universalis and Total War than from books, even though those games aren't even real in the sense that you're making up a new timeline. Orbital mechanics only clicked for me when trying to land a rover on the Mun in KSP.
Maybe entertaining simulations are the second-best way to learn besides actually doing something, with books somewhere further down the line.
https://acoup.blog/2021/04/30/collections-teaching-paradox-e...
But you do learn about the situation in which different countries and historical figures found themselves and the options they had.
This is much more valuable because this type of learning has lessons for today; versus merely memorizing that king such-and-such did this-and-that in 1523, which doesn't.
Based on recent HN threads, sounds like a large percentage of scientific papers are pure fiction. At least books on Goodreads have public reviews and a simple star rating.
Does similar exist for scientific papers?
https://retractionwatch.com is a good one to read occasionally.
> reading scientific papers in PDF, listening to 2h conference talks
is not equivalent to
> Watching movies, playing a 60h narrative videogame
There's too much that's either unsaid or can't be said in those other mediums. The mediums themselves even preclude any kind of depth due to their very nature, constraints, whether they be financial constraints, distribution, time-slot scarcity (as in a T.V. series), etc. Many seemingly educational works become vapid infotainment (TED Talks, History/Discovery networks, videogames can maybe be narrative, but the essence of it is always the gameplay).
I think his thesis was directed more at the importance of non-fiction expositions, but I feel it's just as applicable to works of fiction, which are oftentimes even better at expounding important ideas, philosophies, etc. than non-fiction works.
It may be old, but calling it "legacy" implied it's an old relic we should abandon.
I'll say that the opposite is the case. We should be reading more, and do less of passive activities such as watching movies or listening to conferences (where its very easy to zone out and not get any useful transfer).
Overall I think this readers to become more reasonable people, because life is full of unreasonable things. Things we can't explain, things that seem silly, but we nevertheless have to grapple with them.
Other fiction can fulfill a similar role, but I suspect that books are better at it because they require the reader to put in more effort.
We shouldn't. We also don't, not really. Reading books has a certain prestige, but by almost any measure, we "obsess" more about movies and/or tv shows. Even some of the best selling books of all time probably have orders of magnitude less exposure than tv shows, movies or games. Not unrelatedly, far more people talk about TV shows and games, etc.
I think the only obsession is that some people consider books to be "better" in some sense. Personally, I don't think books are better, just different. I enjoy TV shows and movies as much as I enjoy books, and consider them to both be important. (I don't play many games, which I think truly is me missing out!)
It wasn't only last year either.
EDIT: people are counting scientific journals, articles, etc. so, I'm good there, but not a book, from cover to cover, in years.
[1]: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/to-the-royal-ac...
Voracious reader. Dozens of books a year, all swords & sorcery. Not really anything he could learn from.
And that also links to the real data.
Toplines: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econtoplines...
Crosstabs: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor...
49% of Americans read at least 2 books.
From page 124, the 4 indicators that you probably read a book are Race (white), Income (100k+), Voter registration status (registered), and party/ideology (not a centrist).
Note that mystery, crime, romance and history were among the top genres. I would venture that many more Americans watch mystery, crime, romance and history shows than the 46%.
To me, this borders on trying to draw conclusions from sensationalist titles like "only 10% of all Americans listen to the town cryer for news". There are other forms of media that people use to consume information or entertainment.
[0] https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/48239-54-per...
The lack of reading is a symptom.
With those caveats, I have zero difficulty absorbing an audiobook. The only thing I'd say is that the narrator's performance definitely colors your impression of the book, for better or worse or just...different.
(Yes, Britney Spears is still on the NYT list. I checked so you don't have to.)
From what I've read, this is why you never see Christian literature on the top seller lists. The Christian publishing industry is absolutely massive and would consistently dominate any objective top sellers list.
I read a lot but I can't think of a book I read last year.
I don't think "didn't read a book" is that useful for inference about imagination, literacy, education etc., unless it's also matched by watching an enormous amount of linear or episodic television.
"Didn't read a book" might, however, be a meaningful proxy for shorter attention spans. I think it could be in my case, even though I read voraciously.
Have you tried before spending your whole day at your computer?
I also found myself having a lot less time to read after having a child. I've only started again this year because I feel like doomscrolling in bed is not the best way to fall asleep.
Between work and kids it just has to go. I am also blessed with no sleeping problems which means that I fall asleep the moment i go to bed. I try to read at least one book per year during vacation.
I read so much when I was younger.
I am not certain I will get the habit back when I get older.
Can't say I miss it, either.
Reading a book at this stage in my life (busy with kids) feels self-indulgent and selfish.
I try to read some of the books my kids read, allows me to connect with them. They love talking about their books.
N.B. This stat appears to pertain to English language literacy, not literacy per se. Some of those 18%ers might be reading Dante in the original Italian or Shakespeare in the original Klingon.
citation needed
These days I'll often read a book or two on vacation, but not always.
I've actively come back to this way of reading books the last 15 years, the key is to make it easy to read books and not having any notifications.
This is a perennial observation about general illiteracy in the US but who was even alive when this wasn’t the case? lol
Fahrenheit 451 is a 70 year old book complaining about this exact problem.
When I am in a period when I am reading books regularly, I am generally happy. Things are going well, I have good life balance.
When I go a stretch without reading books, I am generally stressed out and in burnout mode at work, and home life is not great.
Note - this is generally fiction. I read very little non fiction.
Note 2 - most people I know have no books in evidence in their homes. Maybe they read Kindle or other ebooks? But I think many simply do not read recreationally.
Reading is, for me, a better form of pure escapism than gaming or movies.
Like going to the gym, it’s easy to go a long stretch without reading once you stop, and fall into effortless habits again.