Why Don’t People read anymore?

TL;DR

Videos are more entertaining to the lazy and the stupid, OP.

Can't become a Tik Tok "star" by reading books.....

I have a theory that the constant shorts videos--instagram and tiktok--are ruining the human capacity for concentration that reading requires. The first time I looked at Instagram, I thought I was having a seizure by the overload of fast-moving editing.

Because our minds can't do it anymore. I am a writer, my roommate is a writer....we only manage to live together due to this and the fact that she is an ally. But over the past year, between moving to Romania, COVID, adjusting to work from home, all the shit in the news, no sex, both being widows in a sense...the books we got last Christmas and put in the library are there. We want to read Sapiens, but our minds wonder off. I want to revisit "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and she wants to revisit her Garcia-Marquez and Fitzgerald but says "my mind just wonders off and can't finish a line". I feel the same. I want to read again. I tried it all, ginko, mindfulness.....nada.

Romania guy,

Every time I read your posts, I wonder what you're doing there. Do you work for an NGO that does aid or something?

I'm pretty guilty of that this year. Reading takes a chunk of time where I always think I could be could be doing something else other than just sitting there (same with tv) so I mostly used to just read on the train. Which obviously hasn't really been a thing this year. That said I have really got into audio books since June as I can pretty much plough through books I've wanted to read for years while I'm doing other stuff.

R6 - I don't do anything that interesting. I work for an American multinational company that set up a new business unit here simply because the skilled labor is cheaper. I am one of the four Americans they sent over to write articles about real estate in NYC and the US to market the brand and also to train the locals.

No good comes from reading booooks.

R7 - don't you find it annoying to hear someone else tell a story? For me, part of it is creating the voice in my mind.

Same as R7. I can't sit down with a book for hours without feeling guilty, like I'm wasting time and should be doing something. Which is ridiculous because I'm wasting a lot of time here, and it doesn't make me feel the same. Probably because I never intend to stay for a long time, it's always "just five minutes more" and then I realise it's an hour later. I love audiobooks too, because it allows me to multitask, but also because my eyes get tired easily.

I’ve read more this year than I have in years, including classics I never got around to. I’m not on social media and I could live without television, but I couldn’t live without books.

I try to read new things: usually contemporary fiction and non-fiction that comes with good reviews and/or good word-of-mouth....

And I'm inevitably disappointed. Reading is time-intensive, and I hate investing an hour or two just to get into something, only to realize I don't/won't stay with it. This has happened a lot to me, particularly during quarantine, when I have nothing but time.

So much contemporary fiction is dissatisfying to me--not so much because it's poorly written as I'm left wondering, why did someone need to tell this story? So much empty, as the kids say.

In my case, I'm a Boomer with failing eyesight and reading off a page requires tons of light and magnification. Plus my computer has ruined the experience. If type is not on a computer screen, I can't and won't read it.

Grad school destroyed my love of reading and it still hasn't come back. I am angry about it.

Any of you from LA and remember Brand Bookshop in Glendale?

I actually think with social media and smart phones we're reading more than in the 2000s. And podcasts are just radio by another name.

[quote] I actually think with social media and smart phones we're reading more than in the 2000s.

It's a lot of snippets of trash.

The problem is that reading anything with a sustained argument--over a chapter, and then over several chapters--requires concentration that one doesn't get from a Wiki article or your friends' social media posts.

I read People. Usually at the beauty parlor.

I read before I go to bed every night. I try to read like 5 -10 pages until I'm falling asleep. I keep buying books and just stack them alongside my bed and get to them when I can. I like reading biographies of gay people from the past.

R20, nice! What have you read lately?

When I am disciplined, I try to read for an hour or two as soon as I wake up, before I check any devices, as I drink my coffee. (I'm an early riser -- 4AM or so).

It's a great way to start the day, and I feel less guilt about it than I would about reading in the middle of the day.

r4 I absolutely think you're on to something.

After reading this thread, I now understanding why DLers are horrendous at spelling and grammar.

I do, OP. Fuck off.

[quote] I have a theory that the constant shorts videos--instagram and tiktok--are ruining the human capacity for concentration that reading requires.

Honey, people binge watch 10 hours of one television show. People read every time they turn on their phones.

Feeling guilty about reading is totally unnecessary, as reading trains your brain in different ways, and it enriches your vocabulary.

That said, I like to read before bed and when travelling. Kindle has been a godsend.

I wish I could read books like I used to, but find it impossible to stay focused on long texts. I think I have adult ADD.

r26 I doubt they're reading Victorian novels on their phones.

That's the thing. Text is becoming reduced to snippets, soundbites, and the attention required to read a book has been adversely affected.

I love reading but as I get older I feel guilty that I'm not doing other things with that time. And like most art and things in life there's about 10% that is really brilliant and high quality and the rest is forgettable so you often regret losing hours to something that ends up disappointing.

[quote]I'm pretty guilty of that this year. Reading takes a chunk of time where I always think I could be could be doing something else other than just sitting there

[quote]I can't sit down with a book for hours without feeling guilty, like I'm wasting time and should be doing something.

[quote] I feel less guilt about it than I would about reading in the middle of the day.

[quote]I love reading but as I get older I feel guilty that I'm not doing other things with that time.

This is interesting. What would you be doing that makes you feel guilty for spending time reading?

For me, working, r31.

Actually, it's odd: I'm an academic and I feel guilty for reading for pleasure. It is as if I have a finite amount of mental energy for reading, and I feel I should be dedicating that energy to reading articles or scholarly monographs.

R14, I had a lot of luck getting a book stand and a couple of little book lights. The extra light was a necessity, and I was able to adjust the book so that it was eye level and I didn't have to look down -- a huge help because my current glasses prescription was messed up by my optometrist's office but because of the pandemic I haven't been able to get them fixed.

Had to buy a separate basket to put the stand and lights in so it was easy to move on and off the bed where I read, but it's been worth it, I've read more this year than I have in many years prior.

Don't think phones are causing a loss off attention span. I'm old enough to remember when people said television was causing a loss of attention span, then it was MTV videos, then it was video games. Decades ago "experts" said movies caused a short attention span.

The truth is, humans have short attention spans. Period. We're not being changed by TV or smartphones, we're creating these new avenues for entertainment because we naturally gravitate toward things that don't take a lot of sustained attention.

[quote]A short attention span is part of the human condition, Cutting says. The American psychologist William James knew this more than a century ago. "There is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time,” James wrote in 1890.

[quote]What that means, Cutting says, is that no matter how hard we try to focus, our attention has a natural tendency to waver. “People flake out every few seconds,” he said. “You fluctuate in and out, and there’s a natural pattern to this.”

I got into audio books too during the pandemic.

I listen when I walk the dog and started because I was getting bored of podcasts.

Started with non-fiction because it seemed easier to listen to but have moved on to fiction, which very much depends on the narrator. A good narrator can do multiple voices and make it seem more like an old-fashioned radio play.

I think once things are back to normal-- Biden in office, vaccine distributed--that the need to be online and able to check the news at all times will dissipate.

R31 There are a lot of things I should be doing, there are always a few chores, cleaning, doing my taxes, training for my work, etc. I have trouble doing things for fun if they take a lot of time. Feels like overindulgence. I can't watch TV or movies either, unless it's with someone.

R35 - interesting. I was talking to a girl at Starbucks while getting my coffee this morning and she is fluent in English with an American accent and says that this constant checking our phones, smartwatches, and other devices is a "new normal" that will probably not go away. We have become used to living in our heads and virtually with the pandemic and, had she not lived in San Diego during her undergraduate years, her English would probably be far poorer in terms of pronunciation because now, in grad school, EVERYTHING has been online. The pandemic has just made this 100 times more pronounced.

Ive been a lifelong reader . I carry a book every time I go to a doctor appt or anywhere I have to wait. I get asked constantly "what are you reading?" since no one on the planet carries a book around anymore. It drives me crazy . I do agree with the poster upthread who said much fiction of the last 20 years is out and out dreck. Formulaic and reductive (to quote Hagdonna) . Rare anymore is a book that captivates me to the point I cant put it down. Even rarer is a book I think about for days afterwards. That all being said,I cant imagine life without books. One of my biggest fears of aging is losing my sight .

R38, when I used to leave my house (pre-Covid), I would take my thesaurus when going for coffee two times per day. People would ask me if I was a preacher.

r31 Honestly? Nothing even vaguely important. Like someone else said I can waste a few hours a day mindlessly browsing Reddit, here or other sites. But that's in unplanned bursts of doing nothing. I've reached a weird stage where I hate saying "I've got 2 hours spare I'm going to read/watch a film". But I just finished War and Peace on audio book while out walking and doing the more mechanical parts of my job and was able to pay attention to the majority of it and genuinely enjoyed it so I know I still enjoy getting lost in a good story. Maybe its some sort of fear of commitment on my part.

I am well informed but I don't read fiction anymore for a number of reasons and I feel no guilt nor do I think I am missing out. In fact, I think fiction worsened my mental health problems and depression when I was younger and struggling with some very unpleasant things. Too many writers seem to enjoy rubbing readers faces in pointless cruelty and cynicism. I know that goes against the popular sentiment about reading fiction being a positive and mind opening habit.

Everyone I know reads all the time. And not shit, real literature. You need to improve your friendships.

R42 - can you introduce me to your friends? I'm always meeting idiots and the few guys I dated who read literature were slightly insane so that's that.

How can we improve our friendships without leaving the house?

Also, some cities are flowerbeds of ignorance. Of course, if you live in LA or NYC, you can find smart people.

The internet. And no, taking in bits and pieces on the internet is not reading. I go to bed too late because I spend too much time online. I get to bed and I'm too sleepy to read so I rationalized I'll just browse for a little because that's easier than reading a novel. Rinse and repeat for all the other times during the day I don't read.

I used to listen to audiobooks regularly. Then poof, just ability to follow a book aurally. This week I finished an audiobook because I needed it for work "learning" credit. So maybe the work stick will get me back to audiobooks.

I’m afraid I have rather taken against r42. He sounds insufferable.

Still read but only on the pot.

What R15 said.

After I finished the 500 books on the book list for my Ph.D. comps, I never read fiction for pleasure again.

Of course, DL is one of my guilty pleasures.

I feel more guilty for reading fiction than non-fiction, especially if it isn't a great work of literature or at least canonical.

[quote] He sounds insufferable.

That inappropriate use of that four letter word makes me prejudiced against him, R46.

I usually wake up at 6am at the latest. I actually wish I didn’t. Particularly on these very dark, cold mornings. So I usually read for an hour or so. Sometimes I’ll fall back to sleep so that’s a bonus. Otherwise, I find whatever I’ve been reading, I tend to have a calmer perspective on things.

Then at night, I will usually read for an hour or so again.

The lockdown time made me realise my attention span was like a kid’s because of using an iPad, even though I’m not on social media. So I consciously worked on getting back into a regular reading habit. I don’t include myself in this but well read people are invariably far more interesting to listen to in conversation because they have a far broader frame of reference.