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Not sure how I feel about the gamification of reading. At the low end, you’re probably better off not reading at all if the alternative is, say, anything by Tom

Not sure how I feel about the gamification of reading. At the low end, you’re probably better off not reading at all if the alternative is, say, anything by Tom Clancy or Jason Calacanis. So spend your willpower on something meaningful. And even for higher quality literature, is it really “a person that reads this” that you want to be, or rather “the kind of person that enjoys reading this”. You can force the first, but the second is more doubtful. I guess that’s what they are getting at with the “building a reading habit” phrasing, and there’s little to lose in trying.

technotarek 6y ago
This seems a bit extreme. Is anything that is incentivized bad? Charitable giving? Putting solar on your house? Obviously those are monetary incentives, but goosing desired behaviors with incentives of any form kind of makes the world go round (or at least it would seem so when you're a father of a young child!).
- dmje 6y ago
  I think I’d turn it around and instead say: “does everything have to be incentivised”? I mean, I’m all for being encouraged, but there’s a fine line between incentives and feeling pressured. A big bit of me thinks: if you genuinely want to read more, you’ll read more, and probably don’t need a website to help you do so.
powersurge360 6y ago
You're made of what you consume. That's as true of ideas as it is for food. Forcing the first will, over time, effect degrees of the second. Wanting to like something is already a large portion of the way to actually liking something. Sure, it won't be universally true and you can't will yourself to like everything, but I think more often than not if you want to do something you will be grateful for having done it.
habosa 6y ago
In the age of Twitter and Instagram it's not really productive to insult book readers for reading the "wrong" books. I don't want us to lose reading. (Also Rainbow Six was sweet)
- Bakary 6y ago
  A more charitable version of their argument would be that reading isn't a worthwhile activity by itself. It has been marketed as such given the context of screens, but it is not magically more stimulating on its own than most other activities, nor are Twitter and co. magically unstimulating on their own. Plenty of people torture themselves with trying to start a reading habit when their heart isn't in it, and often gain very marginal benefits out of it compared to other forms of light entertainment they could find more enjoyable. For people who do enjoy it naturally, there is obviously nothing wrong with it. But I notice that online platforms discussing books are rife with anxiety on the number of books read, the "productivity" of it, and are filled with articles about the benefits of reading. Essentially, the attitude we have towards books is a form of cargo-culting. It's not the reading itself that is important, but getting exposed to new thoughts, knowledge, and perceptions and synthesizing them over time.

technotarek 6y ago

This seems a bit extreme. Is anything that is incentivized bad? Charitable giving? Putting solar on your house? Obviously those are monetary incentives, but goosing desired behaviors with incentives of any form kind of makes the world go round (or at least it would seem so when you're a father of a young child!).

dmje 6y ago
I think I’d turn it around and instead say: “does everything have to be incentivised”? I mean, I’m all for being encouraged, but there’s a fine line between incentives and feeling pressured. A big bit of me thinks: if you genuinely want to read more, you’ll read more, and probably don’t need a website to help you do so.

powersurge360 6y ago

You're made of what you consume. That's as true of ideas as it is for food. Forcing the first will, over time, effect degrees of the second. Wanting to like something is already a large portion of the way to actually liking something. Sure, it won't be universally true and you can't will yourself to like everything, but I think more often than not if you want to do something you will be grateful for having done it.

habosa 6y ago

In the age of Twitter and Instagram it's not really productive to insult book readers for reading the "wrong" books. I don't want us to lose reading. (Also Rainbow Six was sweet)

Bakary 6y ago
A more charitable version of their argument would be that reading isn't a worthwhile activity by itself. It has been marketed as such given the context of screens, but it is not magically more stimulating on its own than most other activities, nor are Twitter and co. magically unstimulating on their own. Plenty of people torture themselves with trying to start a reading habit when their heart isn't in it, and often gain very marginal benefits out of it compared to other forms of light entertainment they could find more enjoyable. For people who do enjoy it naturally, there is obviously nothing wrong with it. But I notice that online platforms discussing books are rife with anxiety on the number of books read, the "productivity" of it, and are filled with articles about the benefits of reading. Essentially, the attitude we have towards books is a form of cargo-culting. It's not the reading itself that is important, but getting exposed to new thoughts, knowledge, and perceptions and synthesizing them over time.