3 ms·

This is a terrible article of the variety "I do something therefore everybody does something": typical mind fallacy on crack, nary an actual numerical statistic

• bcassedy 12y ago
  Agreed. The author also seems to assume that everyone reads like he does, pausing to think about each word, "walking through another's thoughts." This is something I've given a bit of thought to recently, interestingly triggered by an episode of King of the Hill. I don't read in this manner and never really have. I read fiction for the story. I want to know what happens next. I don't linger on a sentence trying to decipher the subtext. It was a great struggle for me to learn to read in that manner for English courses, and I never really enjoyed it. Meanwhile today there are great TV shows with interesting things to say. The Wire, The Sopranos, and Black Mirror all have gotten me thinking, trying to see from another perspective much more easily than any book ever has. I believe that our brains don't all work the same way. What the author gets out of reading, I get out of TV and movies and cannot get naturally out of books.
• jayvanguard 12y ago
  That is my take as well. Vague allusions to current research but no hard cites. Seems like recycled trope of "modern life is too busy and our brains are rotting". I read a great excerpt from something published in the 1800s complaining about the same thing... I'll have to dig it up.
  • jayvanguard 12y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1227/ https://xkcd.com/1227/ There they are... see 1894 and 1895 in particular.