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>The sad truth is that we are becoming an illiterate society. I guess this is the shame hook of the article. I don't think we're illiterate, probably the oppos

>The sad truth is that we are becoming an illiterate society. I guess this is the shame hook of the article. I don't think we're illiterate, probably the opposite. The amount of knowledge I gain by reading things other than books far surpasses the amount of knowledge I've gained reading books, and I've read a lot of them. What's the point of reading books? Gaining knowledge. What's the point of riding a horse? Travel. Just because one method of doing a thing is losing popularity doesn't mean we are illiterate or we don't travel. In fact, I think it's the opposite. I can read a 500 page book about a topic and retain maybe 1/10th of it after a year. I can read a wikipedia article on the same subject and retain 90% of it a year later. The latter is certainly better for a broad base of knowledge for the curious.

chihan 4y ago
I don't mean to offend, but you almost proven the article correct. He is stating we are becoming a non-reading society. Literacy is about being able to read or write, not the ability to learn new things. You may be correct we are learning a lot more about the world, but we aren't doing it so through the medium of books. I would suggest audio or visual mediums are the new deliverers of information, with context given by Wikipedia. The value he is presenting, from my point of view, is not pure knowledge gaining, but communal knowledge. At the beginning, he is giving his perspective of a time when everyone read at least a certain set of books, but the island is vast and so has the wondrous coastline to a negative impact. Also, I could read a Wikipedia article and retain nothing and read a 500 page book and think about it weekly. Interest in the topic is important to retention so is the quality of the book. I say these things as I watch three hours of YouTube a day... smh.

chihan 4y ago

I don't mean to offend, but you almost proven the article correct. He is stating we are becoming a non-reading society. Literacy is about being able to read or write, not the ability to learn new things. You may be correct we are learning a lot more about the world, but we aren't doing it so through the medium of books. I would suggest audio or visual mediums are the new deliverers of information, with context given by Wikipedia. The value he is presenting, from my point of view, is not pure knowledge gaining, but communal knowledge. At the beginning, he is giving his perspective of a time when everyone read at least a certain set of books, but the island is vast and so has the wondrous coastline to a negative impact. Also, I could read a Wikipedia article and retain nothing and read a 500 page book and think about it weekly. Interest in the topic is important to retention so is the quality of the book. I say these things as I watch three hours of YouTube a day... smh.