I do a ton of recreational reading, but it's mostly articles and comments here instead of books.
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
236 points (99.2% liked)
News
31889 readers
2553 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I "read" a lot. Just audio books. I don't usually get time to sit down and read, but I do a lot of driving and other mind numbing chores. For that, I "read"
Weird, I've been reading a lot more this year. But I do go through phases:
Binge Watch TV/Movies
Binge Reading
Binge Gaming
I'm in the middle piece right now. Probably 6 or 7 books in the past couple of months? Started my first read of Roadside Picnic last night, should finish it tonight.
People are developing vastly different forms of entertainment. I play games, i would rather do that than read a book. It is more engaging to me to interact with the author's imagination in real time.
As someone who has played video games most of their life and came up with every excuse in the book to avoid reading, I'm letting you know that you should try to develop an appreciation for it.
It will help you out in the long run, and give you something to do in your free time that, to be frank, doesn't make you seem like such a loser.
I'm just being honest and hoping you can learn something from my mistakes.
I do appreciate books and people that read, I have tried it and I know its just not for me. I also do not watch movies or TV, I dont enjoy jigsaw puzzles or puzzle boxes, and I loathe anything happening in the ocean. Im aware of who I am as a person and I know what I do and do not like.
Video games are not a loser medium, that way of thinking has nearly died out in the last 15 years and the industry is probably the biggest form of entertainment in the world, for a reason.
Im definately part of this one. I read voraciously up until college when I had to lay off of it during the school year or it interfered with studies to much. Was still my favorite pass time till the new millenia when the internet sorta took over (work n life and junk is maybe a bit to blame given my first decent job and getting married). Last book I read was the last book robert jordan wrote in the wheel of time series. Maybe something after that but even at the point I read that I had borrowed it from a work friend I shared an office with when he finished it. So I was way slowed down and figure that was 2005 or 2006 since he picked up the book as soon as it was available in hardcover. Oh man its been 20 years since I was big on reading. Going to be half my life soon enough.
That makes a lot of sense.
This might make some of you uncomfortable, but it seems like this coincides with women's adoption of tech and social media.
Women already read at way higher rates than men, but since so many of them are swept up in the social media hysteria, they literally don't have time or patience to do it any more.
I got back into reading in the last couple of years. I was already reading a bit more, but it cranked up when I got a job with a lot of downtime. Plus, finding a topic that is endlessly interesting helps: first two-hundred years of christianity. (I’m an atheist and a history nerd.)
Gmork would be pleased.
We can't extrapolate data from "Americans" to say "people in general" like this title does.
Americans and declining education is not a new phenomenon nor is it global. Americans are also not role models for anything.
True, on the other hand US is often a canary indicator. Often, not always.
In general, I have heard many variations of “people don’t read anymore” soooo many times, I wonder why it’s still news. Yeah, people read less books, more blog posts, more stuff on the internet and so on. It has significant effects on long term information connection, creation and maintenance of neural patterns and so on. Either we restructure the internet or that’s how it’s going to go…
load more comments
(3 replies)
There's so much worse happening to society, so many more important things the media and "studies" could be pushing.
Why isn't this article about the growth in the wage gap between lowest paid and highest at companies between those years.
Why isn't it about the fact we're in a new dark age of war where starvation (Gaza) and chemical weapons (Ukraine) are being used.
"Wouldn't it be nice if people read more"
Yes, but shut the fuck up and turn your media clout to something more important. Fix the quality of life and justice issues.
The Neo-Liberal force of the media and academia are largely misapplied to both-siding Capitalism and the Capitalist Fascism it's produced, and I'm sick of it.
Your post is why I read.
load more comments
(1 replies)