There are so many devs who can‘t properly Google, but there are equally many devs who can‘t get a couple of books about a subject (that alone is a skill not many devs have mastered), dive into it and take the time to understand. Either they never learned how to properly read or they don‘t have the patience, and thus look for a shortcut.
It‘s okay if you are familiar with a tech to look up how this or that can be solved idiomatically / differently / at all, but never taking the time to learn the basics (of Regexes, of Python, Ruby, Javascript and whatnot) will give you superficial knowledge where you can‘t assess a situation, go two steps on your own before you constantly consult stackoverflow.
Yeah, absolutely. I've become so accustomed to the instant gratification loop of "how do I do this -> internet for 2 minutes -> okay got it" that having to actually read papers or docs on something to build an understanding is a real slog for me lately. I think neural plasticity goes both ways and it's a skill that can be built up again, but getting yourself weaned off of immediate answers is pretty tough.
Try to solve the problem described by the book or research using your Google skills and once you fail you'll appreciate the resource that gives more insight more. Giving yourself more context to the subject makes things interesting.
If you succeed, what's the point of reading the entire thing then? If it still has something distinct from what you already achieved go the the specific page and read that.
It‘s okay if you are familiar with a tech to look up how this or that can be solved idiomatically / differently / at all, but never taking the time to learn the basics (of Regexes, of Python, Ruby, Javascript and whatnot) will give you superficial knowledge where you can‘t assess a situation, go two steps on your own before you constantly consult stackoverflow.