5 ms·

Purely anecdotal, but most of the kids in my son's cohort, early 20s, have received what would be considered by most to be a good education, but don't read for

Purely anecdotal, but most of the kids in my son's cohort, early 20s, have received what would be considered by most to be a good education, but don't read for pleasure. I find that worrying.

saulpw 1y ago
I also didn't read for pleasure in my 20s and even much of my 30s. Forced reading in high school (of material I didn't enjoy, in quantity, and frequently fell behind on, and felt bad about failing) ruined it for me for about 15 years. But the trauma faded with time and now I read some 10-30 books a year. So maybe it's not permanent for your son's cohort either.
- JLO64 1y ago
  I second this. I hated (perhaps not consciously) being forced to read books in high school, however recently I’ve gone back and started rereading those books I was assigned and have loved it!
anon291 1y ago
It's probably not a good education. If your kid is in an average public school they were probably not taught to read phonetically. Unless you as parents taught that separately, all these kids are handicapped.
nxor 1y ago
Don't we though? My generation is also known for watching hour long youtube videos (video essays), and even if that's not all of us, that's more than past generations (of course). And we are known for listening to hour long podcasts. Even if these podcasters are not necessarily as informed or as rigorous (same for youtube), I think my generation still in some ways shows a curiosity for information That said I mostly agree with this and think for one, if foreign language was appreciated more here, maybe people would read more
- nawgz 1y ago
  Podcasts are horrible content slop that are appealing more because one can enjoy the parasocial relationship it offers rather than because the podcasters are insightful or informative.
  - nxor 1y ago
    Some are, just like some books are (not necessarily to the same degree)
- JohnMakin 1y ago
  The amount of words even an average reader can consume and understand in an hour is vastly higher than what one can gain from a video essay, even if played at 2x speed. For high performing readers, it's not even close to be remotely comparable.
  - nxor 1y ago
    I don't know. Watching x amount of quality videos and reading x amount of quality written works is surely better than just reading x amount of quality written works. And finally, of course the content of those words matters. I could read a 200 page academic work and if the work is poorly written then I haven't gained much.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > Watching x amount of quality videos and reading x amount of quality written works is surely better than just reading x amount of quality written works Why surely? The reason I'd push back on that simplification is it's much easier to simply absorb--without engagement--information from video. The struggle that comes with reading not only measurably increases retention. It also increases the chances that you're going to notice you're not dealing with a quality source. There are far fewer dumbfuck textbooks on almost any topic than negatively-informative videos on YouTube, for example. > I could read a 200 page academic work and if the work is poorly written then I haven't gained much Could you give an example? Not of a work that's wrong. Just poorly written. Plenty of classical sources are, by modern standards, incredibly poorly written. Yet there isn't a substitute for reading the originals. One can learn from videos as well as from written sources. But it's harder to do right. Easier to do wrong. And you'll have put yourself in a silo from experts, who tend to communicate via and thus reference writing.

Purely anecdotal, but most of the kids in my son's cohort, early 20s, have received what would be considered by most to be a good education, but don't read for pleasure. I find that worrying.

saulpw 1y ago

I also didn't read for pleasure in my 20s and even much of my 30s. Forced reading in high school (of material I didn't enjoy, in quantity, and frequently fell behind on, and felt bad about failing) ruined it for me for about 15 years. But the trauma faded with time and now I read some 10-30 books a year. So maybe it's not permanent for your son's cohort either.

JLO64 1y ago
I second this. I hated (perhaps not consciously) being forced to read books in high school, however recently I’ve gone back and started rereading those books I was assigned and have loved it!

anon291 1y ago

It's probably not a good education. If your kid is in an average public school they were probably not taught to read phonetically. Unless you as parents taught that separately, all these kids are handicapped.

nxor 1y ago

Don't we though? My generation is also known for watching hour long youtube videos (video essays), and even if that's not all of us, that's more than past generations (of course). And we are known for listening to hour long podcasts. Even if these podcasters are not necessarily as informed or as rigorous (same for youtube), I think my generation still in some ways shows a curiosity for information That said I mostly agree with this and think for one, if foreign language was appreciated more here, maybe people would read more

nawgz 1y ago
Podcasts are horrible content slop that are appealing more because one can enjoy the parasocial relationship it offers rather than because the podcasters are insightful or informative.
- nxor 1y ago
  Some are, just like some books are (not necessarily to the same degree)
JohnMakin 1y ago
The amount of words even an average reader can consume and understand in an hour is vastly higher than what one can gain from a video essay, even if played at 2x speed. For high performing readers, it's not even close to be remotely comparable.
- nxor 1y ago
  I don't know. Watching x amount of quality videos and reading x amount of quality written works is surely better than just reading x amount of quality written works. And finally, of course the content of those words matters. I could read a 200 page academic work and if the work is poorly written then I haven't gained much.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Watching x amount of quality videos and reading x amount of quality written works is surely better than just reading x amount of quality written works Why surely? The reason I'd push back on that simplification is it's much easier to simply absorb--without engagement--information from video. The struggle that comes with reading not only measurably increases retention. It also increases the chances that you're going to notice you're not dealing with a quality source. There are far fewer dumbfuck textbooks on almost any topic than negatively-informative videos on YouTube, for example. > I could read a 200 page academic work and if the work is poorly written then I haven't gained much Could you give an example? Not of a work that's wrong. Just poorly written. Plenty of classical sources are, by modern standards, incredibly poorly written. Yet there isn't a substitute for reading the originals. One can learn from videos as well as from written sources. But it's harder to do right. Easier to do wrong. And you'll have put yourself in a silo from experts, who tend to communicate via and thus reference writing.