As the parent of a 16 year old, I find this discussion fascinating. My son used to love reading books, from when we started with the "Bob Books" in Kindergarten, through somewhere around 5th or 6th grade.
He still loves reading, but mostly for items of topical interest. He does it for fun, to entertain himself, and to learn new things...but it's not books! He scarfs up online content like it's going out of style.
TBH, I had no idea just how much he was reading until I paid attention to how much mispronounced advanced vocabulary he was using, which was a sign of seeing and not hearing the words. The other evidence is just how well he does on crosswords, Wordle, etc. The vocabulary is definitely there.
All of this is to say that the article seems to focus on "books" rather than "content." Are kids not reading for fun, or are they not reading _books_ for fun?
It is a good question, but reading 400 pages of content is not the same as reading a book.
Books are (usually) the product of intentional long-form writing along with heavy editing and review. The ideas per unit of a book are usually more polished than the ideas in a similar sized unit of online content.
(not criticizing your kid btw, sounds like he is doing great).
> The ideas per unit of a book are usually more polished than the ideas in a similar sized unit of online content.
Is there any objective measure of this? Books have to be 300+ pages because that's the size you can sell them in, I've seen plenty of books that feel padded out because, well, they've been padded out.
That is a fair counterpoint -- there is certainly a fair amount of padding going on.
However I worry about our culture of "just give me the main idea". It is very rare for someone to get as much out of the cliff notes as they would out of the full text. They may be able to recite the thesis, but that is not the same as _understanding_ what the author is trying to say.
Sometimes a book needs to cover the same topic from multiple angles just to force your brain to marinate in the ideas for a longer period of time. Yes, the thesis is repeated, but it is unlikely you fully understood it the first n-1 times.
I think there is something to be said for how most religions teach important texts. Not only are the summaries not good enough, but you engage with the same text over and over. You memorize it. You read related sections in topical groupings. You listen to sermons on multiple themes within the same passage.
Reading is not just about the ingestion of individual facts. You need to connect those facts to other ideas in your head (array them on a latticework [0]) and re-reading or a (seemingly) drawn-out explanation can be a good way increase the odds of making a connection.
I think the core advantage of content is that the idea density is actually much higher. Many books could be essays and still communicate the main points. Many essays could be paragraphs. Many paragraphs could be sentences, etc. Density is a feature of content, maximizing brain stimulation per second.
This is a double edged sword, trading depth for breadth. While many books or essays can be summarized, much is lost in the compression.
You have to ask for which domains is a shallow summary appropriate, and what the advantages are of having a poor understanding of many things. That isnt to say they dont exist! they absolutely do. I just worry that having deep understanding and being capable of deep thought is going out of style, and think that many people dont know what they are missing out on.
He still loves reading, but mostly for items of topical interest. He does it for fun, to entertain himself, and to learn new things...but it's not books! He scarfs up online content like it's going out of style.
TBH, I had no idea just how much he was reading until I paid attention to how much mispronounced advanced vocabulary he was using, which was a sign of seeing and not hearing the words. The other evidence is just how well he does on crosswords, Wordle, etc. The vocabulary is definitely there.
All of this is to say that the article seems to focus on "books" rather than "content." Are kids not reading for fun, or are they not reading _books_ for fun?