I think that at least to some extent, the stranger-than-fiction reality we're living through is a strong substitute for the novelty we used to seek in books.
I just read "Slow Horses" by Mike Herron. It's easily as good as the show on Apple TV and was lots of fun to read. I can't imagine anything more entertaining.
I find that when I start reading a book that I enjoy, it is easily the most gripping form of entertainment, and I can barely put the book down. But, it also takes more effort to get started, so I rarely get into that zone and end up scrolling my phone instead.
This is generally true of anything worthwhile - it always takes some activation energy. Watching a good film vs mindless one, tiktok vs a book, gardening vs tv. Investment of time into things worthwhile vs that immediate dopamine hit is a constant battle.
I think for me the friction comes from the commitment required to finish the book. If I pick up a book and I’ve not been reading lately, it means I need to commit to picking up that book for weeks.
I know you don’t necessarily need to finish every book, but if I don’t finish then I won’t be able to pick it up again later without forgetting the progress or re-reading the same sections again. Neither are desirable.
Maybe it's because of applying too narrow a definition of what contents should count as "for pleasure reading": books, magazines... but what about blog posts, social media? Certainly, that's something people read for personal pleasure?!
Planes are the worst way to watch a movie. Even with good noise cancelling headphones you can barely hear the dialogue. The screen is a 10 year old el cheapo LCD, and the video is 480p compressed to hell. On top of that, it has unskippable ads and the film is muted whenever the PA is on.
It looks like they didn't include podcasts. Given the rise of various podcasts that are basically serialized audiobooks, I have to wonder what the numbers would be like including them.
I don't recall my parents reading with (or to) me, ever. maybe when i was two and I don't remember it? I never saw either one read for pleasure. I did know my dad would read fiction when waiting in airports when traveling, because he'd giv me the paperbacks when he'd get home. (I remember a Bantam Doc Savage reprint, Ludlum, Forsyth, and more). That said, I've always read for pleasure and do it daily.
I admittedly read less for myself nowadays, as I can only pick up an hour here or there, but I've read at least 10-20 pages per day for/with the kids for the last 8 years. The bonus with the 8 yo is that I've read books that didn't exist when I was young and thus never got around to, so I've read Percy Jackson, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter (not as good as the expectation), on top of reading the Hobbit for the 3rd time (her request) and a few repeated Narnia books (some of the latter written ones are quite a slog frankly). I'm hoping to keep this up for as long as they are receptive.
But solo reading I think I've only gotten through Exhalation, Silmarillion and Rendezvous with Rama in the last year.
I have been shocked by the monstrous neglect that is heaped on many children. A significant number of parents keep kids like worthless livestock. They do the bare minimum to not lose them to CPS and then kick them out at the first opportunity.
Spending as much time as it takes to read to your children every night is WAY more than these parents are willing to do. Children are lucky if they can eat more than one meal a day, sleep in a clean bed and have clean clothes to wear. Usually there are abused and neglected animals that will foul the household and bite the children. Money is spent on nicotine products, alcohol, fast food, and gambling. Any money spent on children is done so hesitantly.
This is why social services like daycare and public schools are so important. It is often the only chance many children will have to get the care and attention they need to survive until adulthood without huge mental and physical health issues.
My dad read to me and my brother every night. When I became a teenager I read his (fairly complete) sci-fi collection for fun and we spent a ton of time discussing it together. It's surprising how similar our tastes are, I don't know if that's genetic or epigenetic but I suspect it doesn't matter and many people could have a similar experience.
I've been maintaining my own collection in the hope that I could give my own children (if I have any, which is looking increasingly less likely) the same experience.
> reading for pleasure (reading a book, newspaper, magazine, reading on electronic devices and listening to audiobooks)
Given the social media engagement numbers, for better or worse that would be enough to put us at peak reading. Is it fun ? nobody's setting on gun on people's head so it would still fit the article's définition IMHO.
This reminds me of articles lamenting people's attention span because they don't watch the endless spinoffs of Lord of the Ring, and play Zelda instead.
There's a large difference between reading a book and reading social media posts or news articles: books require hours of concentration to consume, have long-spanning arcs of plot or other structure, and require significant use of our imagination (particularly fiction). You just don't get those three things from any other form of written media.
Signed in just to a agree with this. Over the years, I have seen many people bring up some trite form of online reading in an attempt to raise it to the level of what we typically think of when referring to book reading. It's a stance I really can't take seriously, both as a concept and due to personal experience. "The C Programming Language" did not give me vivid dreams or boost my writing skills, general creativity, and vocabulary when I first read it. A mid-level sci-fi book from the 80s, when I haven't done any for-fun reading in a while, does. There is clearly a cognitive difference between the very act of consuming each of these. In comparison, social media posts or news articles are far closer on the broad spectrum of reading to the the like of road signs and subscriber agreements. The mechanical act of reading is simply not equivalent over the broad range of content that can be read, and so its effects on the mind are also not equivalent. Related? Sure, but only by the fundamental understanding of symbols and language. Apologies for the rant.
Was absolutely horrified when books read per year came up in a discussion and I realized answer was maybe one.
That was in a discussion with my parents no less...who raised me in a household that had an unspoken "we'll pay for it if you finish the book" rule so book culture was definitely there.
Worst part is my book acquisition strategy has been on point. I have good books. Amazon daily sales are 95% crap...5% daily not crap monitored daily over years = library of respectable books.
idk...as I said horrified is the word that comes to mind. I genuinely don't get how this snuck up on me like that
Question: How much is this impacted by people who read for pleasure but fool themselves into thinking it's useful?
Many books are closer to edutainment than practical applicable advice. To a certain type of person these are easier to read (spend time on) than reading purely fiction. And even then it's easy to say you only read fiction that is totally giving you something more insightful than entertainment.
See also many YouTube/Instagram/TiKTok channels and most if not all Substack (et al) newsletters. Yes of course deep diving into <niche subject> at 2am is super critical to my life!
I’ve found my own reading for pleasure has dropped a lot the past year as well and it’s almost entirely due to AI.
Most(easily 90%) of my reading came in the form of serialized novels that are published chapter by chapter in various forums. They’ve all been swamped with AI content that’s good enough to not be immediately obvious but then becomes a waste of time after a few paragraphs.
And it’s just a firehose of this kind of content. I can’t tell if the actual human made content is down because people are tired of the competition or if there really is that much bot activity that the human activity is being watered down to single digit percentages
Maybe I am misunderstanding the study but I don’t understand why reading a magazine or newspaper is counted while reading an article on one’s phone is not.
I went in a Barnes & Noble recently and was underwhelmed by the sheer amount of vapid crap masquerading as literature these days. I'm pretty sure if people are avoiding most of that crap that it's a good thing not a bad thing.
back in the day, bookstores specialized.. Barnes & Noble were a warehouse-sized super-commercial shop from the start; pushing vapid crap was certainly in that mix. Unfortunately, Amazon Books out-inventoried even the behemoth Barnes & Noble.. think Walmart for books. It was intentional.
Further, reading on tablets, computers, or smartphones was not explicitly included in examples, making it unclear whether this behavior would have been classified as reading for personal interest or technology use.
I would like to cast doubt on the findings if they don't include phones.
I recently retired, one of my pastimes is reading. My wife has been a voracious reader already, so we’re getting some good quality reading time.
The best discovery: instead of going to Goodwill to find good books, I’ve been using our local library’s online services. ( Libby and Hoopla. ) These provide an endless supply of reading material, all stored neatly on my iPad and with adjustable fonts and background. This is a golden age of leisure reading!
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 53.9 ms ] threadIt was fun.
I know you don’t necessarily need to finish every book, but if I don’t finish then I won’t be able to pick it up again later without forgetting the progress or re-reading the same sections again. Neither are desirable.
Though I obviously didn't walk the entire plane, looking around from my seat / when walking to the restroom, everyone I saw was watching a movie.
This part really got to me, reading to one's children is rare? That's so sad. My toddler loves reading with me.
But solo reading I think I've only gotten through Exhalation, Silmarillion and Rendezvous with Rama in the last year.
Spending as much time as it takes to read to your children every night is WAY more than these parents are willing to do. Children are lucky if they can eat more than one meal a day, sleep in a clean bed and have clean clothes to wear. Usually there are abused and neglected animals that will foul the household and bite the children. Money is spent on nicotine products, alcohol, fast food, and gambling. Any money spent on children is done so hesitantly.
This is why social services like daycare and public schools are so important. It is often the only chance many children will have to get the care and attention they need to survive until adulthood without huge mental and physical health issues.
I've been maintaining my own collection in the hope that I could give my own children (if I have any, which is looking increasingly less likely) the same experience.
Given the social media engagement numbers, for better or worse that would be enough to put us at peak reading. Is it fun ? nobody's setting on gun on people's head so it would still fit the article's définition IMHO.
This reminds me of articles lamenting people's attention span because they don't watch the endless spinoffs of Lord of the Ring, and play Zelda instead.
It's pretty astounding what reading to kids every day can do for them regardless of the environment they grow up in.
That was in a discussion with my parents no less...who raised me in a household that had an unspoken "we'll pay for it if you finish the book" rule so book culture was definitely there.
Worst part is my book acquisition strategy has been on point. I have good books. Amazon daily sales are 95% crap...5% daily not crap monitored daily over years = library of respectable books.
idk...as I said horrified is the word that comes to mind. I genuinely don't get how this snuck up on me like that
Many books are closer to edutainment than practical applicable advice. To a certain type of person these are easier to read (spend time on) than reading purely fiction. And even then it's easy to say you only read fiction that is totally giving you something more insightful than entertainment.
See also many YouTube/Instagram/TiKTok channels and most if not all Substack (et al) newsletters. Yes of course deep diving into <niche subject> at 2am is super critical to my life!
Most(easily 90%) of my reading came in the form of serialized novels that are published chapter by chapter in various forums. They’ve all been swamped with AI content that’s good enough to not be immediately obvious but then becomes a waste of time after a few paragraphs.
And it’s just a firehose of this kind of content. I can’t tell if the actual human made content is down because people are tired of the competition or if there really is that much bot activity that the human activity is being watered down to single digit percentages
I recently retired, one of my pastimes is reading. My wife has been a voracious reader already, so we’re getting some good quality reading time.
The best discovery: instead of going to Goodwill to find good books, I’ve been using our local library’s online services. ( Libby and Hoopla. ) These provide an endless supply of reading material, all stored neatly on my iPad and with adjustable fonts and background. This is a golden age of leisure reading!