[HN Gopher] Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in Englis...
___________________________________________________________________
Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class
Author : signa11
Score : 65 points
Date : 2025-12-13 23:25 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| functionmouse wrote:
| Maybe I would've had something intelligent to say about this
| article, had I been allowed to read it.
| gscott wrote:
| You have to have money to read it but first you need to be able
| to read to earn money. It is a crazy circular problem.
| isatis wrote:
| Un-paywall'd: https://archive.ph/lcAZ3
| stevewodil wrote:
| I don't know if this matters much. When I was in school it was
| rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I'm sure
| with LLMs now it's less.
|
| I've started to have a positive association with reading only in
| the last few years, I wish schools didn't force books onto
| children and make them think they hate reading for their whole
| lives.
| anon7000 wrote:
| It's odd, I read ravenously as a kid/teen, as did my siblings.
| You need to read what you enjoy, and for it to not be forced.
| (For example, summer reading at the library gave out prizes
| kids cared about for reading books.) Plus, we didn't have
| access to much digital media like TV/video games (though it was
| the early 2010s) because my parents were strict, so books were
| a solid source of entertainment.
| brightball wrote:
| I read a lot of books that fit my tastes as a kid, usually
| adventure/fantasy genre stuff.
|
| Never enjoyed the stuff that got assigned in school though.
| I'd probably like it now.
| Natsu wrote:
| Anything you're forced to do too much you lose all
| enjoyment of. If you're given at least a bit of agency,
| it's far more enjoyable.
|
| I read because I wanted to all the time, but every reading
| assignment was a chore.
| watwut wrote:
| It is not just it being homework. It is not like I hated
| evything in school - I actually discovered quite a few
| intersting things there.
|
| It is that books everyone here is said that kids dont
| read anymore or brags they read ... are just not
| interesting books for a kid.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I too read ravenously as a kid. Strangely, in the 90's we
| were never assigned full books in English classes, just short
| stories or chapters.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I'm older than you (graduated high school in 1975). I read
| tons of sci-fi as a kid. I also don't remember reading any
| whole novels for English class. Maybe we did, but if so I
| have successfully blocked them out.
|
| I have been amazed at the number of houses I've been in
| over the years which didn't appear to contain a single
| book.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| It doesn't happen anymore because of phones and the internet.
| Most people in the past read because they had nothing to do
| and they were willing to invest the time into a good book.
| You sacrifice a lot of energy in order to get enjoyment from
| a book.
|
| Now with the internet there's an unlimited stream of zero
| investment snippets of entertainment. People naturally dive
| into that because it's more rational in the short term to do
| that.
|
| Schools stopped reading but it's as a result of the way
| students behave. The causal driver is student behavior.
| Telaneo wrote:
| > I wish schools didn't force books onto children and make them
| think they hate reading for their whole lives.
|
| It's a tough position to be in, although I'd imagine it could
| be remedied by having the kids pick whatever book they want. So
| they can read whatever they want, but they do have to actually
| read it. Form a learning/teaching point of view, this is
| probably ideal, but I'd imagine it's not really possible from a
| logistical point of view, since the teacher would likely have
| to familiarise themselves with as many books as they have
| pupils, which isn't viable unless the class is fairly small.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > I wish schools didn't force books onto children and make them
| think they hate reading for their whole lives
|
| The problem is that if you don't force them, they never
| actually become literate enough to discover that reading is fun
| later in life.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| Or, as we've seen recently, you can force them and they still
| won't be literate enough.
| aaplok wrote:
| You could force kids to read books without forcing which
| books to read. The issue as always is to find a balance
| between giving kids agency and making sure they do what's
| right.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Now that creating written works is trivial, the new skill
| to have would be figuring out if what you are reading has
| an ulterior motive, such as advertising.
|
| Or even figuring out if it was created with the intent to
| have any utility at all for the reader.
|
| Other than avoiding any written works made after 2020, I
| am not sure what to tell my kids. Even trusting the claim
| that something was written after 2020 seems difficult,
| unless you have a physical print showing its age.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| The kids don't hate classroom reading because of the reading;
| they hate it because of the associated curriculum. "Why were
| the curtains blue?" is a skill wasted on children. I only
| gained an appreciation for such meta-reading during a weeks-
| long TV Tropes bender during a spat of unemployment after
| getting fired from my first big-boy job.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Makes me wonder is wrong question been asked. Shouldn't it
| first be why were curtains described in first place?
| Telaneo wrote:
| Probably a better question, atleast for a wide variety of
| books. Some authors however are very into writing
| detailed descriptions of places because that's how their
| brains work and what their readers enjoy, but 95% of
| those descriptions have nothing to do with anything that
| happens later in the book, other than hiding the one tiny
| detail that actually does become relevant.
|
| If 'why are the curtains blue' were consistently
| explained together with Chekhov's gun, then maybe we
| wouldn't be here having this discussion.
| TitaRusell wrote:
| If the purpose is reading then we let kids read books that
| they like.
|
| I can read a 1000 page history book but after 50 pages of
| Dutch literature I want to throw it in the garbage bin. High
| school KILLS reading. Few survive.
| bgbntty2 wrote:
| I think school ruined fiction books for me. I had to read long
| boring books about stories that didn't interest me, with
| useless sentences describing what the scene looked like or what
| someone had for dinner. Most of the stories and themes were
| outdated and didn't have enough context to make them
| understandable. Some books even used outdated words and
| phrases.
|
| Maybe if I wasn't forced to read a book in an outdated language
| about some Christian farmer 300 years ago while I was not in
| school, and if I could access a succinct version 1/10th of the
| length of the book, I'd read it.
|
| Maybe if I wasn't asked to describe minor details to prove I
| read the book, I'd actually focus on the story and not on every
| irrelevant detail.
|
| Maybe if my teacher didn't force their religious holier-than-
| thou attitude and allowed us to form our own opinions, I'd be
| more engaged.
|
| What school taught me was how to get away with not reading the
| books. I skimmed books by skipping tens of pages at a time or
| asked friends for the TL;DR or just got an F.
|
| Now I have a feeling of uneasiness and dread when I try to read
| fiction for fun. So I don't.
|
| Most 300 page fiction books I had to read could've easily been
| condensed to 30 pages without any loss of information.
|
| Being forced to read and memorize poetry was the absolute shit.
| A lot of people won't care about poetry no matter how hard you
| try to force them to like it. And half of it was propaganda -
| how $nation survived $struggle, how $nation is so great or
| beautiful or how $hero did $ethical_thing.
| floren wrote:
| > Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't
| have enough context to make them understandable. Some books
| even used outdated words and phrases.
|
| no cap Mr Darcy ur parties are bussin fr fr
| bgbntty2 wrote:
| I should've used "archaic" instead of "outdated". As in,
| "incomprehensible to someone speaking proper modern
| $language". Without a dictionary, a normal student couldn't
| understand what was being said in many sentences throughout
| the book. Some books actually had a dictionary in the end,
| but not for all the archaic words and phrases.
| opello wrote:
| I was intrigued by the idea that it might be unreasonable
| for a book to include a glossary or dictionary to explain
| usages for made up or unfamiliar terms. I like that this
| list [1] exists because I was struggling to think of such
| a book. But then I thought about The Lord of the Rings,
| and it even includes an index of terms among its
| appendices, which is something I remember using to
| revisit parts of the story when I first read it. Another
| book with a glossary of terms is Dune, which I found fun
| and reasonable to avoid trying to explain hierarchy where
| doing so would break the narrative flow. But maybe that
| just means it's not as cleverly constructed or organized
| as it could have been--but the trade-off has to be how to
| engage a wide selection of readers...
|
| Is the complaint about the dictionary at the end because
| it wasn't comprehensive? I'm unreasonably curious about
| the book and which phrases were included and which were
| not.
|
| I think all written works occur in a context that should
| be taken into account when thinking critically about
| them. That context is temporal and linguistic and is more
| apparent when you consider something like Beowulf in Old
| English or The Canterbury Tales in Middle English.
| Understanding it requires either a modern
| reinterpretation or consideration given to the
| sociolinguistic context in which it was written.
|
| [1] https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/180823.Novels_wit
| h_Gloss...
| dooglius wrote:
| I think you are missing the broader point: why should one
| read things occurring in an alien context to begin with?
| It's not as if there is a dearth of more modern works. It
| seems like the main function of selecting older works is
| to make it artificially harder for students to read.
| floren wrote:
| > why should one read things occurring in an alien
| context to begin with?
|
| Are you people for real?
| opello wrote:
| > why should one read things occurring in an alien
| context to begin with?
|
| I think there's a trivial answer which is that all things
| you encounter are fundamentally from an alien context.
| The degree of alien and intention of the action are the
| things to consider before proceeding.
|
| For example, why would one choose to read the account of
| a survivor of tragedy? To develop some amount of
| (emotional or cognitive) empathy? To learn a broader way
| of thinking that could apply to a future situation? Most
| simply: to learn from the past.
|
| If the goal is entertainment, evaluate your participation
| such that you maximize your utility. If the goal is
| learning, one should be wary of premature rejection
| without sufficient context to avoid missing the lesson.
| And there is an annoying reality in which most situations
| can teach something.
| lm28469 wrote:
| God forbid we learn new words or learn words form the
| past... Why even bother with history right? It's just old
| stuff anyways let's focus on new stuff, what could these
| old things teach us anyways
|
| Meanwhile my grandma still knew how to speak Latin at
| 70+, which she learned in school as a teenager
| watwut wrote:
| I sometimes take pleasure at reading old language ... and
| still think that giving it to kids as introduction to
| reading is absurd.
|
| If they read 10 interesting books a year adding one like
| that to the mix or offer them the option is great. If
| they did not encountered interesting bool after agw of 7
| when parents stopped reading them, no.
|
| And interesting books for kids are there. Plenty of them
| of all kind, including pure action/adventure stuff.
| Including those related to movies or games they play. It
| is not lack of resources.
| miningape wrote:
| Honestly, I'd gladly pay for and read a version of pride
| and prejudice rewritten in gen Z slang
| eimrine wrote:
| > Being forced to read and memorize poetry was the absolute
| shit.
|
| Yes and no. I used to start reading at 4 years old, but I
| forcedly used to memorize some rhymes at 3 years old. Most
| folk don't believe it is possible to read so early (though
| Eliezer Yudkowsky has reported about similar age). But my
| point is - how would I learn reading so early without that
| poetry?
|
| I don't really like poetry exactly as rest of the fiction
| genre. And I am still sure it is not shit even for those who
| are struggling of doing that. I consider poetry exercises as
| sport exercises: today you claim that some specific muscle is
| not important for you, but tomorrow you get some injury which
| happened because of some weak muscle.
|
| But you have also said one important word - propaganda. This
| is what really shitting any education and propaganda seems
| like the monster from the Nitzsche's quote "Whoever fights
| monsters should see to it that in the process he does not
| become a monster".
| Throaway198712 wrote:
| I also learned to read at 3. I actually remember the switch
| from illiterate to literate, as I remember realizing that
| just by looking at road signs I would automatically read
| them. I told my sister, who couldn't read yet, that there
| was a downside, as you could never look at language without
| reading it ever again!
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Seems like a skill issue on your end.
| Telaneo wrote:
| Is this the right attitude to have to kids who we want to
| get into reading?
| TitaRusell wrote:
| It is interesting how everyone parrots that art is important
| when the vast majority of the population will never actually
| engage with it.
|
| Opera? Ballet? Literature? Poetry? Classical music? Modern
| art?
|
| Do the numbers it seems most people can do without them and
| still be functional.
| floren wrote:
| Fully functional economic units, the true aspiration of all
| thinking beings.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| Avengers end game is also art. I engage with this type of
| art. I don't consider opera the art of our modern culture.
| It is unfortunately a niche.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I don't understand this. If kids are reading for enjoyment
| already, is assigning a book in school going to kill their love
| of reading? Or are we taking about kids who never read until
| school forced them to?
|
| From what I understand, if parents read to kids when they are
| little, they become readers who enjoy it.
| Telaneo wrote:
| > If kids are reading for enjoyment already, is assigning a
| book in school going to kill their love of reading?
|
| I nearly did to me, or atleast the continual assignments did.
| It took a long time for me to pick up a fiction book again.
| School never assigned me technical writing and encyclopedias,
| so I continued to enjoy those, thankfully.
| robcohen wrote:
| It just seems to me that the entire purpose of school is not
| clear. What precisely is the purpose of "English" class? What? To
| read and speak English? Ok, then why can't kids test out of it
| most of the time? Is the purpose to be knowledgeable about a
| canon of literature? Why can't people test against that?
|
| The truth is that pedagogy and instruction is just a lazy way of
| providing childcare. So who cares what they do with their time.
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| The purpose of school is a mix between providing childcare, and
| making sure most of society have a largely overlapping common
| upbringing experience. We hear that we encourage diversity -
| but only of superficial stuff like sexual orientation or skin
| color. We don't want people that think _too_ differently.
|
| This is why I, despite my deep appreciation for the pursuit of
| knowledge and having spent a significant chunk of my life in
| the academia after graduating, want my kids to spend as little
| time as strictly necessary in primary or secondary schools. And
| the need comes from the fact that I need some of that
| childcare, not that I need someone else to teach my children
| anything.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| It is awfully hard to get anyone, children or adults, to
| think at all
| andrekandre wrote:
| i was literally told this at $JOB once: we dont have time
| to think; just give us a framework to follow
|
| it seems like thinking is a form of torture for some... but
| maybe its our work/lifestyle that makes it so.. idk
| techblueberry wrote:
| I'm curious - do you think you're an independent thinker? Do
| you think it's a competitive advantage? What does thinking
| differently mean? It seems like a thing people say because it
| sounds good without really interrogating it.
|
| I objectively find myself to be an independent thinker, and I
| mostly find it distracting. I could be much more functional
| to society/work/relationships if I spent more time thinking
| about the kinds of things other people think about, in the
| way they think about them.
|
| I observe most of the most successful people in society, are
| successful _because_ they have mainstream thought patterns,
| people look up to them because they understand them, and they
| develop solutions that are in line with what most people
| need/want/desire.
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| I think I'm an independent thinker. One symptom is that I
| repeatedly find myself observing that other people do
| things because they're copying other people. This is one
| symptom, but there's more.
|
| > Do you think it's a competitive advantage
|
| > I could be much more functional to
| society/work/relationships
|
| > most successful people in society, are successful
| _because_ they have mainstream thought patterns
|
| Don't care, I'm not optimizing for being competitive, being
| successful, or any of the other things you mentioned.
|
| See, another symptom of being an independent thinker: I've
| thought about it on my own and I've concluded I'm not
| interested in your targets.
| tayo42 wrote:
| So what is your independent thinking doing for you? Are
| you happier then most?
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| To me, thinking independently isn't a mean to an end,
| it's an end in itself.
| techblueberry wrote:
| This sounds like a very common sort of misanthropic
| attitude I see littered around the web.
|
| You know how they say - like in making music - in order
| to break the rules you have understand them?
|
| I don't like the take directly, but as a person who makes
| music, what I realize, and I think this is what they
| meant, it if you don't study music, most people are
| likely to naturally slide into the most simplistic forms
| of it, because that's what naturally sounds good, so
| you're like naturally more inclined to recreate a 1 4 5
| progression, rather than Mozart.
|
| Do you think that you may have accidentally slid into
| this position, or sort of thinking exactly like a like
| blase' counter cultural sameness, copying all the self-
| defined independent thinkers?, or do you think you have
| some insight into what makes your perspective unique and
| clearly in some way spiritually valuable to you?
|
| I would be concerned that purely "thinking about it on
| your own" would lead to a really narrow set of beliefs.
| Like no offense, but your answer is a carbon copy of
| "disaffected youth" I've both exhibited and seen
| exhibited my whole life, with maybe a little less bite,
| so I'm guessing your not that young. But I'm often wrong.
|
| But I am genuinely curious, what do you think makes you
| an independent thinker? And what purpose does that serve
| you?
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| > copying all the self-defined independent thinkers
|
| At this point I can no longer put effort into responding
| to you. You think that my conception of "thinking for
| myself" is "listening to people who claim they think for
| themselves, and repeat what they say"? You know the HN
| principle of "assume the most generous interpretation"?
| This is the opposite.
|
| Anyway, FYI, you sound like you're trying to deradicalize
| an andrew tate fanboy. You're A) really bad at feigning
| your concern, and B) extremely off target.
| techblueberry wrote:
| You didn't give me a lot to go on. I think it was the
| most generous interpretation from what was available.
| Give me more! What drives you? How am I so off base?
|
| This is genuinely a philosophical question I am deeply
| interested in, what is individual thought?
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| Why do you care so much about me? Re-reading our
| conversation, you were the one that asked "do you think
| you're an independent thinker", as if hoping for a yes so
| that you can then attack it. All I said is schools are
| mostly childcare.
|
| If you care, go check my comment history and ask about
| something specific.
| techblueberry wrote:
| Do you think independent thought and deep thought are
| correlated or uncorrelated? When you say most people copy
| their perspectives do you think that's bad?
|
| A lot of the thinkers I've been interested in lately seem
| to deeply embed their thoughts in a tradition, so I've
| been thinking that in order to have better thinking I
| should copy more.
|
| > why do you care so much about me?
|
| Sad question, but what is life but a series of attempts
| to connect to other people. Having a discourse makes it
| real. Tell me I'm wrong! Maybe having independent
| thoughts has real value. Usually "think different" is
| about as deep as an apple ad.
|
| Yes yes, I started this as a bit of a gotcha, I have a
| bias against people who proclaim to be independent
| thinkers, and decry others as sheep ("copiers"), but I
| would love to be wrong!
| wavemode wrote:
| It's about practicing how to read and write. Skills that you'll
| benefit from in every form of knowledge work that you'll ever
| do.
|
| I would cut almost every other class from the curriculum before
| cutting English.
| malnourish wrote:
| It's also about how to reason about and understand what
| you're consuming, how to analyze sources, how media affects
| you; my wife is an English teacher and the comments here are
| often completely missing what's truly going on in a school.
|
| Explains a lot, actually.
| tekla wrote:
| > Ok, then why can't kids test out of it most of the time
|
| Because they can't read or write, and neither can most adults,
| including developers.
| Telaneo wrote:
| I agree that that's its purpose, but the fact that there are
| many adults who are as bad at reading and writing as there
| are just goes to show how bad the classes are at actually
| teaching what they're trying to teach.
|
| That said, maths aren't much different. Being bad at maths is
| a cultural marker of sorts, since many maths classes are very
| bad indeed at teaching much beyond basic addition and
| subtraction.
| tekla wrote:
| School is good for people who care to care. American
| students do pretty decently on international standard
| exams. It's that we have a culture of not giving a fuck,
| and thus we have adults who can't read something that is
| over a 6th grade level.
|
| See this very website on people who complain that they
| can't digest a pretty straightforward article
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46008788
| Telaneo wrote:
| I'd love to see those exams redone on a selection of
| adults with nothing to lose if they fail or get a bad
| score. Maybe the not giving a fuck becomes apparent then.
|
| Out of all of Zizek's writings, that article really isn't
| that bad. I agree it could do with some headings, but you
| shouldn't need ChatGPT to summarise it for you, but I'm
| not surprised some people do.
| djoldman wrote:
| In the USA, you can test out of it: the GED.
| bsder wrote:
| > To read and speak English? Ok, then why can't kids test out
| of it most of the time? Is the purpose to be knowledgeable
| about a canon of literature? Why can't people test against
| that?
|
| Because people _VASTLY_ overestimate their ability with their
| native language or their command of native language literature.
|
| The SAT English Achievement tests used to absolutely obliterate
| even students who got good AP English scores. This isn't
| limited to English--even native Japanese speakers struggle with
| the advanced JLPT levels, for example. Grammar is hard, yo.
|
| If you don't actively study your native language, your working
| vocabulary is quite small and your grammatical constructs are
| excessively simple.
|
| As for shared literature, we were in front of what was claimed
| to be the house of Jonathan Swift with a bus full of tourists
| from various English-speaking countries, and the tour guide
| cracked a joke about "A Modest Proposal". I snickered a bit but
| didn't think much else. The tour guide pulled me aside later
| that I was the first person to get the joke and it was almost
| the end of the year--we're talking hundreds to thousands of
| people from the US, Australia, India, etc.
|
| I mean, just ask someone to name three main characters and what
| they did in the last book they read. Most people will struggle.
| You need to spend some discussion time in order to affix a book
| into your memory.
| miltonlost wrote:
| > To read and speak English?
|
| And how are you, right now, communicating? You're writing in
| English. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, all written down, is
| its own subject that people aren't born knowing or can acquire
| like they can speak.
|
| In addition, it's English Literature and Language in the same,
| so yes, about knowing partly a canon, but how how to interpret
| texts, both nonfictional and fictional and poetic.
|
| > It just seems to me that the entire purpose of school is not
| clear.
|
| I don't know how to explain to you why it's important to
| educate humanity.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > Why can't people test against that?
|
| Most school districts _do_ allow students to test out of
| classes and get placed at higher grade levels. The majority of
| people would never have tested above grade level. Your presence
| here means that you likely would have.
|
| > The truth is that pedagogy and instruction is just a lazy way
| of providing childcare.
|
| Providing every child with an education has been pedestrian in
| the developed world for less than a hundred years; it is far
| more expensive (and generally far more worthwhile) than mere
| childcare. The majority of people now living on earth never had
| the opportunities you and I had in school. This wasn't because
| their caretakers didn't love them, it's because there was a
| dearth of resources available to educate them.
| lurk2 wrote:
| Another user deleted their comment:
|
| > The purpose of English class was to provide a field for
| interdisciplinary subjects. We learned how to write the
| standard five paragraph essay. We learned how to detect
| dishonest and manipulative messaging in advertising. We
| learned to relate themes in literature to contemporary
| society.
|
| This is how I remember my English classes. We did not spend
| much time at all on grammar after the 9th grade. We didn't
| study any classic literature besides reading a Shakespeare
| play every year; you had to take a separate course for that.
| This is also how the classes are treated in most colleges
| these days; you'll get English majors who spent 4 years
| reading critical theory and bad contemporary novels written
| by friends of the department head, rather than anything with
| serious cultural cachet.
|
| This is the only serious criticism of the subject, in my
| opinion; the applications that grammar has in logical
| reasoning, composition, interpretation, and foreign language
| acquisition are too significant to shrug off, but it isn't
| being taught particularly rigorously anymore.
| znpy wrote:
| > The truth is that pedagogy and instruction is just a lazy way
| of providing childcare.
|
| Nowadays? Yes. And that's the problem. It used to not be the
| case in the past.
| adfm wrote:
| I've noticed some of these kids can't tell time on analog clocks
| nor read cursive handwriting.
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Aside from signatures, which don't need to be read, I don't
| remember the last time I've seen cursive outside of an
| elementary school.
| ls612 wrote:
| I never stopped writing in cursive but then again I don't
| write much by hand anymore.
| lucyjojo wrote:
| you don't write. people don't write in cursive around you?
| thrwaway55 wrote:
| Why would you write in cursive? If you care about WPM key
| board toasts it.
|
| If you care about handwritten your receiver cares they got
| your letter at all not that it's cursive or not.
|
| Cursive is an outdated skill for when it was the fastest
| way to get words written to paper.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Why would you write in cursive?
|
| I'm confused. How do you write if not in cursive? Do you
| just write in block capitals? With each letter on its
| own? Do you just not hand write anymore?
|
| >>Cursive is an outdated skill for when it was the
| fastest way to get words written to paper.
|
| But....It still is? Without using some kind of machine of
| course.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I'm not sure the last time I've handwritten anything
| longer than a signature and my cursive skills show it.
|
| On a white board or diagram, block letters seem like the
| most legible choice.
|
| Everything else is typed.
| Zak wrote:
| Most people do not hand write anything more than a short
| note in 2025, and paper is not usually the target medium
| for longer texts. A desire to write without access to
| some sort of machine is a bit quaint.
|
| Of course to be pedantic, modern pens are machines too.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Most people do not hand write anything more than a
| short note in 2025
|
| Is this like....a personal feeling? Or something with
| actual data behind it? But even if so - why does it
| matter? If you write short notes, do you not write them
| in cursive?
|
| >>Of course to be pedantic, modern pens are machines too.
|
| That's beyond pedantic, I struggle to imagine that anyone
| other than the a professional linguist would call a ball
| pen a machine.
| Zak wrote:
| It's an impression from my own social circle. I looked
| for data briefly because of this comment, but didn't find
| anything conclusive.
|
| It does make sense to hand write short notes in cursive
| if you're hand writing short notes at all, but many
| people never learned it, or are so rusty it would take
| deliberate practice to restore proficiency.
| esafak wrote:
| People write in cursive the same way a doctor writes a
| prescription.
| gambiting wrote:
| Not sure what that means. As in, badly? Dozens of times a
| day? The same things over and over again? And who are the
| "people"?
|
| And again, that doesn't really answer my question - if
| you don't write in cursive, how do you write?
| esafak wrote:
| I mean it is illegible and ugly, so why bother?
| cogman10 wrote:
| > Do you just write in block capitals?
|
| Block capitals? no. It's print. With upper and lowercase
| letters.
|
| I rarely handwrite now. The last time I really did was in
| college.
|
| > But....It still is? Without using some kind of machine
| of course.
|
| But of course this is HN where most people are technical.
| We all have some sort of machine at our disposal
| otherwise we'd not be writing back and forth to one
| another.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>It's print. With upper and lowercase letters.
|
| So like.......not linking the letters together then?
| Doesn't that just actually take more effort than just
| writing cursive? And is slower?
|
| >>But of course this is HN where most people are
| technical.
|
| For sure, and as a professional programmer I keep a
| notebook with hand written notes - the fact that I have a
| keyboard and multiple monitors in front of me doesn't
| change the fact that hand writing is still the best(for
| me) way to save and recall information.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > not linking the letters together then?
|
| Correct.
|
| > Doesn't that just actually take more effort than just
| writing cursive? And is slower?
|
| Probably yes to both counts.
|
| However, when I'm handwriting I'm generally not in a
| position where speed or effort is the most important
| thing. To me, it's not much more effort to print and I
| get the added bonus of legibility. When I write cursive,
| it can be hard for me to understand what I wrote when I
| come back to it. I'm just a little too sloppy. It would
| take effort for me to get to the point where my cursive
| is neat and I frankly just don't handwrite enough to
| warrant that effort.
|
| Consider this, do you use shorthand? I'd assume not. But
| why not? It's the fastest way to write anything. Cursive,
| by comparison, is both a lot of effort to write, is
| slower, and it wastes space.
|
| I'd say for (some of) the same reasons you likely don't
| write shorthand, I don't write in cursive.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Consider this, do you use shorthand?
|
| I have no idea how to write shorthand. I assume you know
| how to write cursive, so no I don't think the reasons are
| the same.
| cogman10 wrote:
| You could learn it. It would take some effort but it's
| not insurmountable and it's inarguably superior to
| cursive in terms of effort to write.
|
| I can't write legible cursive. To do that would take
| time, effort, and practice. Much like it'd take that to
| learn shorthand.
|
| That's my point. You and I write the way we do because
| writing in other ways would take more effort than we want
| to spend.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well, fair. Maybe I should learn shorthand.
| cogman10 wrote:
| A part of me wants to learn it as well. It looks so alien
| that it seems interesting to learn.
|
| Because of this conversation I've been reading up on it.
| There are multiple systems, but for English they all
| pretty much revolve around representing words
| phonetically. One form (Pittman) uses different line
| widths for different sounds, making it work best with a
| pencil or fountain pen. Gregg doesn't do that. Gregg is
| most common in the US and Pittman is common in the UK.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Speed and effort arguments are negated for southpaws.
| thrwaway55 wrote:
| I'll be honest I actually prefer my words to be lasting
| and have weight so I prefer block letters carved into
| lead which doesn't benefit much from cursive
| kevinsync wrote:
| I'm a person who mostly types, writes tons of code, but
| also is a graphic designer, and I also have pitiful
| penmanship. I can write regular sans-serif (all caps or
| properly capitalized), as well as cursive, but ultimately
| the concept of fonts make more sense to me than anything
| else in terms of an expression of letters and typography.
|
| There are a million ways to articulate a glyph, from
| thick to thin, clear to murky, big, small, harsh, soft,
| whatever. Some people still use typewriters or typeset a
| printing press. Others use spray paint or marker.
|
| End of the day for me it's just about communication and
| expression and aesthetic and clarity (or sometimes
| intentional LACK of visual clarity in honor of a style),
| not technique or medium. I dunno.
|
| I do think every bozo should be able to pick up a pen and
| make his mark, and I think humans should practice the art
| of crafting a sentence and turning a phrase, but I really
| don't focus on the _how_ , and more on the _what_ , the
| message.
|
| Even the Zodiac Killer had a unique and bizarre style
| with his handwriting and cipher LOL can you imagine if it
| was just bog-standard 5th grade cursive?
| watwut wrote:
| > How do you write if not in cursive?
|
| I write with mix of cursive and sorta print letters. The
| sorta print letters are more readable, actually.
|
| Based on what teachers said, kids use cursive while they
| are forced to and switch to sorta print when they can.
| But everyone invents their own "font", so it is a
| challenge to decipher them.
| Natsu wrote:
| > Why would you write in cursive?
|
| Anyone using paper + pen? Writing a letter or thank you
| note?
|
| You know, stuff only people who grew up before the
| internet was popular still do.
| Telaneo wrote:
| If it's something I want people to read, I'd never dare
| write it in cursive, because if I did, I wouldn't count
| on them being able to read it.
|
| I'll write in (not great) cursive for myself, but for
| other people? Writing in block or print is basically an
| accessibility feature. Even if my cursive was perfect,
| plenty of people would not be able to read it.
| Natsu wrote:
| I grew up in a world where everyone knew cursive, and
| until this sort of discussion became popular in recent
| years, it honestly wouldn't have occurred to me that
| there were many people who didn't know. But I guess they
| had to cut some things out of the curriculum and it's not
| as useful as it used to be.
| shoobiedoo wrote:
| okay, but if you care about recall and activating regions
| of the brain that create a better understanding of what
| you're learning, handwriting wins according to research.
| thrwaway55 wrote:
| I've found drilling notes via method of loci of
| visualized flashcards/facts for this to be superior for
| myself which I always sourced from typed notes. Not
| really familiar with the research that cursive would
| improve over it.
| squigz wrote:
| Can you link to some of that research? The last time I
| saw such research get shared on HN, the researchers were
| limiting the typists to 1 finger (per hand?), which is
| patently absurd.
|
| More than that, I would be curious to see research that
| controls for proficiency at writing/typing. My theory is
| that if more kids were taught to properly touch type from
| an early age, the alleged differences between
| writing/typing would be far less dramatic. I was taught
| since kindergarten and there's no doubt in my mind that I
| absorb and understand information better through typing
| than writing. I'm also much, much, _much_ faster. Brief
| Googling suggests I 'm at least 10x faster than the
| average WPM for handwriting
|
| Instead, here we are talking about how cursive should
| actually still be taught.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| But is there a difference between cursive and block
| lettering? I fully agree with your overall point about
| handwritten notes being far superior to typed notes. It
| forces you to filter out extraneous information instead
| of being a live transcriptionist of your professor.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| > Cursive is an outdated skill for when it was the
| fastest way to get words written to paper.
|
| There was a class signifier aspect to it as well. Poor
| kids couldn't spend as much time practicing and
| perfecting penmanship. In a world where much got done
| through handwritten personal letters, good penmanship
| would make an impression similar to having properly
| tailored formal attire vs a tattered coat.
|
| My grandma went to public school but grew up in an era
| where that sort of thinking was widespread, so she got
| extra tutoring. She learned to write freehand with a
| ruler flat baseline and machine like consistency in each
| letter. You could recognize a card or mail from her
| instantly just by the addressing on the envelope.
|
| I wasn't taught that strictly but I did spend years of
| elementary school with those Red Chief notebooks copying
| letters page after page much to the frustration of my
| young ADHD brain.
|
| I doubt I could properly write cursive today. I barely
| ever hand write notes anymore, so there's no real point.
| komali2 wrote:
| I've been journaling and taking handwritten notes in
| cursive since 1998. You'd think I'd have developed
| beautiful handwriting - nope, illegible.
| macintux wrote:
| ~25 years ago I decided to take the LSAT. At the time, there
| was an essay component that was _required_ to be conducted in
| cursive.
|
| I basically had to teach myself all over again. Not much fun.
| brightball wrote:
| Something really cool about reading the Declaration of
| Independence.
| bigyabai wrote:
| The way things are headed, you'll just point your phone at it
| and have it translated to plaintext in 3-5 years anyhow.
| brightball wrote:
| Analog clocks are interesting in that they exercise your brain
| when you read them. You have to do calculation (what is the
| number system for each hand), spatial reasoning (where is each
| hand) and categorization (what is each hand).
|
| There's a program called Arrowsmith that has a summer program
| called the Cognitive Intensive Program. It's basically 3-4
| hours a day of speed reading analog clock for 7 weeks. You
| start out at 2 handed and work up to 8 handed.
|
| Changed my son's life. He was a completely different student
| afterwards, for the better.
| komali2 wrote:
| What information does an 8 handed clock convey?
| thrwaway55 wrote:
| Time?
| komali2 wrote:
| To the hundred millisecond?
| optionalsquid wrote:
| You could also include day, month, year, and how close we
| are to destroying the world [1].
|
| [1] https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
| msteffen wrote:
| This one? https://www.arrowsmith.ca/cip-arrowsmith-school
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Just $6k to change your life by speed reading clocks for 3
| hours a day for two months...
|
| Needless to say this trips my crank/cult smell meter.
| brightball wrote:
| That is the program, yes. I'm not trying to sell you on
| it, just sharing our experience.
|
| I found out about it from one of my neighbors who has two
| children with dysgraphia who did the full time program
| for 3 years each. He tells everybody about it.
|
| I toured that location when my son was going into 3rd
| grade and we ended up sending doing just the summer
| program after 7th grade. What I saw on the tour would
| have helped me when I was a kid and my sons brain seems
| to work just like mine.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| If you threatened me with 3+ hours a day of speed reading
| clocks instead of a normal summer I'd probably double
| down on effort too. And probably not in a way that's
| healthy long term.
| brightball wrote:
| Well, it wasn't a threat. He knew exactly what he'd been
| struggling with from 1st grade on (officially minor ADHD)
| and we were trying really hard to keep him off of
| medication. Since the program has finished he's asked to
| do it again several times (but we haven't because it's
| expensive). I've thought about teaching him programming
| by having him build his own clock trainer.
|
| It's hard to explain to random people on the internet but
| here's the difference we saw.
|
| - Went from doing homework everyday after school until
| 10pm to always being done by 6pm at the latest.
|
| - Went from forgetting to turn in that same homework and
| sometimes major assignments frequently to rarely. 7th
| grade year he had over 20 zero's for assignments that he
| did and simply kept forgetting to turn in. 8th grade year
| he forgot two homeworks all year.
|
| - Went from years of extreme disorganization to...still
| disorganized but a significant improvement.
|
| - Went from uncertainty about whether he was going to be
| able to keep up with the workload in high school to, for
| lack of a better way of saying it, a star student.
| Teacher reports changed. GPA is a 3.7 (he's in 11th grade
| now). Juggling seasonal sports, Scouts, school, clubs,
| social life, honors/AP classes with no assistance from us
| at all.
|
| It's hard for people to understand when you watch the
| same patterns and struggles for 6 or 7 years and then
| they just stop being a struggle. That 7th grade year, all
| that my wife and I did after we got home from work was
| try to make sure he would get his work done. It consumed
| our life to the point that, after me trying to convince
| my wife that this could help (because she was very
| skeptical too) that it was bad enough that she finally
| agreed it was worth a shot.
|
| He and I were actually going to fly across the country to
| stay in Seattle for 7 weeks to have him do the program in
| person because I didn't think he would be able to pay
| attention to the virtual. The hotel that we had booked a
| couple of blocks from the school cancelled our
| reservation due to renovations and we ended up pivoting
| to the virtual program at the last minute. He did
| surprisingly well in the remote class format. The hotel
| was also close to Microsoft's campus and I got the
| impression that Microsoft had paid them to renovate to
| prepare for a lot of people they were going to have in
| town.
| CGamesPlay wrote:
| Hours, minutes, seconds, degrees, arcminutes, arcseconds... I
| could try to read 6, but honestly I doubt I'd even be able to
| see the arcseconds hand, it would be moving so quickly.
| refibrillator wrote:
| This is hilarious, I don't even want to know if it's legit.
| Telaneo wrote:
| I can read analogue clocks only because I was taught in school,
| and prefer digital ones for all use cases I have myself (other
| than maybe decorative?), and even when I do read an analogue
| clock face, I convert that to digital time in my head before I
| can properly parse it, so I have a hard time blaming them.
| There aren't many analogue clock faces I _need_ to read in my
| life, and there are probably even less in theirs. The last time
| I strictly needed to be able to read one was, funnily enough,
| teaching kids how to read one.
| inimino wrote:
| > I convert that to digital time in my head
|
| What? They are the same thing.
| Telaneo wrote:
| Not to other people I've talked to.
|
| I'm the wrong person to ask this about, since I prefer
| digital time, so time is just a number to me. But
| Technology Connections made a video atleast talking about
| it,[1] so hopefully that get part of the point across. To
| him and plenty of other analogue-first people, time is a
| progress bar, or a chart, or something along those lines,
| and that's the natural way to perceive time, and converting
| it to a number is meaningless beyond expressing it as
| digital time.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/NeopkvAP-ag
| tssva wrote:
| What? Next you are going to tell me they can't use an abacus or
| properly impress cuneiform into clay tablets.
| lm28469 wrote:
| You should talk to teachers, lot of kids can't answer test
| questions because they don't even understand the words in the
| question... A growing proportion of kids are close to non
| functional, with multiple years of delay compared to previous
| generations.
| squigz wrote:
| These aren't really comparable. Cursive handwriting varies
| considerably between people. One person's might be very clear,
| another might be impossible to discern.
| amitav1 wrote:
| This sort of thing is some of the weirdest
| pseudointellectualism I've seen. Most adults and seniors also
| can't tell where they are by the position of the stars, or
| write with a fountain pen, or use a sliderule, or read a
| sundial. Because now we have Google Maps, ballpoint pens,
| calculators, and analog clocks.
| tomcam wrote:
| To me the ability to read a whole book is a competitive advantage
| in the job market.
| eimrine wrote:
| For what industries?
| epolanski wrote:
| Any job position requiring intelligence and nuance which
| unavoidably stems from informing yourself.
| eimrine wrote:
| But the same will inevitably make you hating the capitalism
| which eventually makes you not better candidate on the
| market but worse.
| epolanski wrote:
| I hate capitalism but I don't make the rules so play the
| game anyway.
| tyleo wrote:
| Comments here are very strange, "Reading books should go the way
| of cursive! Education is more like childcare anyways."
|
| It's bizarre stuff to say. What would you have the education
| system do? Put iPads in front of kids all day?
| cr125rider wrote:
| You can say it's like childcare, sure. But learning has to come
| from somewhere. Parents seem to be doing less and less out of
| the classroom. Does that mean we're just giving up then?
| scoofy wrote:
| Society grows great when people plant trees whose shade they
| will never sit in. The problem is that we aren't raising all of
| the kids right. It's a societal problem in as much as it is a
| personal problem for folks unwilling and often unable to work
| with their kids on this stuff.
|
| We aren't a nation of nerds, I doubt we ever were, but nerds
| really ought to create a support system for each other. I
| understand why people care so much about which school district
| they are in. It's as much about a culture of curiosity as test
| scores.
| atmavatar wrote:
| > It's a societal problem in as much as it is a personal
| problem for folks unwilling and often unable to work with
| their kids on this stuff.
|
| Even that is multi-dimensional. Another big problem we have
| in the US is that there are groups of people who don't want
| their children to learn certain things that most well-
| educated people take for granted.
|
| For example, it's pretty common to this day for some school
| districts around the country to skip over teaching evolution.
| It's also common to misrepresent the causes behind the civil
| war and gloss over the genocide of native populations.
|
| Others could probably come up with additional examples.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| They've rebranded knowledge they don't like as "woke".
| jhanschoo wrote:
| Maybe literature is just a terrible medium for culture except
| for the relatively brief period in human history when they were
| extraordinarily cheap to produce and disseminate compared to
| other cultural products.
|
| Edit: but insofar as media criticism in education is bound to
| the book rather than the dominant forms of the day, I think
| children are being done a disservice.
| lm28469 wrote:
| It's still by far the best medium that requires you to be
| active and imaginative while packing the best information
| density and usability. Plus it works offline, without power,
| you can carry it around, &c.
|
| Books forge you in a way short "content" we consume all day
| long today will never be able to, there are a few long form
| podcasts here and there that could be comparable but that's
| not the bulk of the media kids "consume"
| mfro wrote:
| It is still extraordinary cheap to produce and disseminate
| novels. If not more so, if you include ebooks or longform
| blogging.
| raincole wrote:
| ... Prepare shorter or lighter materials for them to read, as
| this article suggests? Why has reading whole books become the
| holy grail of education system?
|
| The said education system expected this:
|
| > As a high school student less than a decade ago, he was
| assigned many whole books and plays to read, among them, "The
| Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," "The Crucible" and "Their
| Eyes Were Watching God."
|
| Yeah, sounds like a very great way to filter out perhaps 20% of
| good readers and make sure the rest 80% will hate reading for
| the rest of their lives.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Let the market solve it. If the market requires educated adults
| the market will create that environment or something, answer is
| probably private schools. I assume they'd say something like
| that.
| smueller1234 wrote:
| Slight problem with that if you would like to live in a
| functioning, thriving democracy: democracy in the sense of
| "one person, one vote" requires or at least greatly benefits
| from a broadly educated population. It's not sufficient, but
| very likely necessary.
| bmitc wrote:
| The market has _never_ solved anything in ways that are
| beneifical for humanity. (Just commenting on the first part
| of your comment, given that your last sentence implies you
| 're just saying what market evangelists would say.)
| onraglanroad wrote:
| I think you're going to attract downvotes from people who
| just read your first sentence and assume that's the actual
| gist of your post.
| pandaman wrote:
| And the people who read the whole comment and see the low
| effort straw man argument.
| frompdx wrote:
| When I was in high-school 20 plus years ago excerpt based reading
| assignments were fairly common in non-honors/advanced placement
| classes. Except there were whole textbooks full of excerpt based
| assignments instead of computer software for this purpose.
| Anecdotally I took honors and AP English and those classes
| destroyed my desire to read for years. I only read a few of the
| assigned books cover to cover because they were either dreadfully
| boring or the expectations for how quickly we should read them
| were more than I, a very average student, could manage. Usually
| some combination of both. Rather than relying on cliffnotes and
| sparknotes alone I would typically read the first chapter, the
| last chapter, and then some chapter in the middle so I was
| prepared for tests and discussions.
|
| At the end of the day the AP exams didn't test you on your
| knowledge of The Scarlet Letter or The Great Gatsby. The exam
| tested you on your ability to read an excerpt and answer
| questions about it as well as your ability to write a multi-
| paragraph essay from a prompt while a proctor wearing the most
| hideous smelling blackberry perfume bathed you in an olfactory
| assault every time they walked by. In-classroom writing
| assignments were the most effective way to prepare and we did
| them frequently. As a reward for doing well you got to skip a
| couple of 100 level English credits in college.
|
| Sure there are lots of brainrot distractions available to kids
| today, but it feels like the education system never takes a
| moment to look inward and acknowledge that The Scarlet Letter and
| My Antonia are dreadfully boring reads. It took me three tries to
| finish 1984 because the beginning is such a slog. It is strange
| to say kids aren't interested in reading (from the article) when
| a lot of the subject matter is objectively dull. Four of the six
| books in the article header are books I don't even want to think
| about let alone read.
| eimrine wrote:
| > Sure there are lots of brainrot distractions available to
| kids today
|
| Take apart the distractions per se, how is it possible to read
| book for a kid in 2025 at all? Reading thick books requires
| having some device with no distructions. In my young ages all
| computers and all smartphones used to have no distructions, but
| now all computers (except some Linux distros) used to be
| bombarded with distructions in such a way that I can not read a
| book on any proprietary OS without getting some notification
| about anti-virus software or some updates or a need to restart,
| or just some events happening on the Internets.
|
| My point is not just that distractions distract people, but
| distructions have become inevitable on almost any modern device
| able to render PDF with formulas.
| squigz wrote:
| > Take apart the distractions per se, how is it possible to
| read book for a kid in 2025 at all?
|
| Literally buy books? What about ereaders? Install adblockers
| and de-shittify your OS? I don't have the problems you seem
| to have, and I'm on Windows.
| eimrine wrote:
| Paper books are too hard to sell after you have read it.
|
| Ereaders can not render PDF/DJVU with formulas. My reading
| list has nothing able to be read from that kind of devices.
|
| Installing some more proprietary code will not lead to
| "deshittifying" some existing proprietary code. You just
| add 1 guy more of your dependances. You even can not do
| this once for whole life of the device. So many time
| perfect for reading goes inte nowhere with Woedows OS.
| squigz wrote:
| > Paper books are too hard to sell after you have read
| it.
|
| Still accomplishes the goal of allowing kids to read a
| book.
|
| > Ereaders can not render PDF/DJVU with formulas. My
| reading list has nothing able to be read from that kind
| of devices.
|
| Kids don't usually have these sort of requirements with
| their reading lists. Also have you looked into
| KOReader[1], which has support for djvu it looks like?
|
| > Installing some more proprietary code will not lead to
| "deshittifying" some existing proprietary code. You just
| add 1 guy more of your dependances. You even can not do
| this once for whole life of the device. So many time
| perfect for reading goes inte nowhere with Woedows OS.
|
| Firstly, I wasn't suggesting installing more proprietary
| code. Not sure where you got that from. Most
| scripts/guides I've seen that help disable the more
| intrusive/annoying parts of Windows are FOSS.
|
| Secondly, then install Linux and only use FOSS, for which
| there are many options to read books with?
|
| [1] https://koreader.rocks/
| amitav1 wrote:
| I don't know about other areas, but the school to which I
| go in Southwestern Ontario still has a library, as does
| every other school to which I have been.
| oxag3n wrote:
| Kids are either into reading or not. There's a critical mass when
| kids read because they like it, to the point where I need to
| remind them to read less.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Pretty much every one in the selective school I went to read
| for fun.
|
| Even the "troublesome" ones.
| skeptrune wrote:
| All of the literature we recommend in school is outdated, so it
| makes sense to me that kids would not want to read them.
|
| More school districts should experiment with contemporary novels
| that make sense in a modern context.
| kotaKat wrote:
| > it makes sense to me that kids would not want to read them
|
| That's why the 2026 remake of _Animal Farm_ in animated form
| includes a twerking pig[1]. Education with brainrot is the
| future!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtjPGXZLW6g
| Pikamander2 wrote:
| I agree wholeheartedly with this.
|
| While "the classics" may have some educational and cultural
| value, many of them came off as dry and pretentious.
|
| There are countless anecdotes online of people who loved to
| read books as a kid but thoroughly hated reading by the end of
| high school or college, which is a terrible outcome.
|
| I think that English classes in general are far too
| prescriptive and narrow in what they assign students to read,
| particularly when it comes to fiction. They seem to adopt the
| attitude of "These books are well-written classics. You have to
| read them, and if you don't enjoy them then there's something
| wrong with you."
|
| Forcing students to read specific boring material might make
| sense in other classes like History or Science where there are
| very specific facts that they need to remember, but the
| required reading portion of English classes doesn't need to be
| handled in such a rigid way.
|
| I suspect that we would end up with far better results if we
| gave students a curated list of popular books and had them pick
| out their favorites to read rather than just telling them to go
| read Ethan Frome and write an essay on loneliness afterwards.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Plausibly some kids might still be reading entire novels worth of
| text online on the regular. Think of all the massive fanfic
| archives (Including original fics) Lots of fanfic authors have
| fans of their own, and those have got to be coming from
| somewhere.
|
| It doesn't _need_ to be in dead tree format. It doesn 't _need_
| to be famous authors. Just so long as they read!
|
| For long form original see eg:
|
| * The last angel https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-
| last-angel.24420...
|
| * The wandering inn https://wanderinginn.com/2017/03/03/rw1-00/
|
| * Or eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel)
| which made its way off the net and into print, possibly to the
| detriment of both. :-P Original location (afaict) (no longer
| available there) : https://www.galactanet.com/writing.html
| fgh_azer wrote:
| The question is whether reading:
|
| - an entire novel worth of short texts, beginning to end
|
| - an entire novel worth of short excerpts from longer texts
|
| - an entire novel, beginning to end
|
| are the same things.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Oh, are you responding to my examples?
|
| * Last angel: A web serial, sure it's chunked into
| chapters/updates, but paper novels have chapters too.
|
| * The Wandering inn, same as above, it's at 2 million+ words
| and counting. People read it.
|
| * The Martian: Actually the shortest text of the bunch. Now
| available as a traditional paper novel.
| fgh_azer wrote:
| I am not responding to the examples, and I am not
| challenging the claim that famous vs not famous author does
| not matter, or that dead tree vs screen does not matter; I
| am raising the question whether it's just a quantity issue
| ("Just so long as they read", "entire novels worth of
| text").
|
| Is it? I am not sure either way. Do you lose something by
| only reading chapters of a novel but never the whole story
| from the beginning to the end, even if you're still reading
| the same amount?
| corimaith wrote:
| The writing quality and complexity of amateur content, even
| long-form is only around the level of a YA novel, truth be told
| alot of the stuff I was reading back in junior high in my
| school library had more depth than this.
|
| It's good that you can get people reading, but reading the
| equivalent of pulp is very different from real novel that isn't
| so bounded by tropes or genre limits.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| 90% of everything is crap. --Sturgeon's law.
|
| Maybe even 99+% these days, seeing how easy it is to publish
| your first finger-painting online. Doesn't mean there isn't
| any good stuff, or even a lot of good stuff. 1% of a lot is
| still a lot.
|
| (ps. and once you get people reading, they tend to keep doing
| it and develop taste over time. if it's even just a few who
| wouldn't have done it before. That's good, right?)
|
| (pps. For example: at 2M words, I think pirateaba might
| exceed the "first 1M words are practice" threshold)
| squigz wrote:
| Who cares? If people enjoy it, let them enjoy it. I've read a
| few YA novels as an adult that I enjoyed, even though I
| regularly read more complex stuff.
|
| Most people, for most of history, have only ever enjoyed what
| might be considered "low quality" entertainment - pulp
| fiction, shitty plays, etc.
|
| > real novel that isn't so bounded by tropes or genre limits.
|
| Interestingly, even discounting YA and other stuff like that,
| you are only describing a very small subset of novels.
| SubmarineClub wrote:
| >Who cares?
|
| I do? Why would I want my kids to be consuming crap when
| they could be engaging with great works and high art?
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| What if that's not the choice? What if the choice is
| "engage with art they enjoy and appreciate, or not at
| all"?
| Telaneo wrote:
| They're great works to you, and a slog to them.
|
| They can read Minecraft strategy guides and Yahoo auction
| fan fics for all I care, since that's a lot better than
| nothing. I remember not wanting to read what school
| assigned me and how that killed my desire to read most
| fiction writing, and would prefer that not happen to more
| kids.
|
| Art is a matter of taste, and if you go counter to your
| audience's taste, don't be surprised if they disengage.
| squigz wrote:
| Because what constitutes "crap" and "great works and high
| art" is highly subjective both to personal tastes and the
| culture of the time.
| TitaRusell wrote:
| Jane Austen was considered pulp. So was Charles Dickens.
| And Conan Doyle.
|
| Nobody considered those high literature back in the day!
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| That cherry picks the best of the best without comparing
| them with the other 99.9% of their contemporaries who
| were pulp authors. They and their literary output are
| forgotten for good reasons.
| squigz wrote:
| I don't think GP is cherrypicking anything; rather,
| illustrating how what is seen as slop one day may be seen
| as "great works" down the road.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| How can I forget Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality
| [1].
|
| HPMOR is written by Eliezer Yudkowsky to promote rationalist
| concepts, and is somewhat influential in startup and AI
| circles.
|
| Directly: Emmet Shear {co-founder of Twitch (YC S07)} is
| apparently superfan and gets a cameo.
|
| So for once I get to post something that's almost on-topic
| for yc. :-P
|
| [1] https://hpmor.com/
|
| [2] https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/21/what-does-a-harry-
| potter-f...
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Maybe not the best thing for kids to be reading!
|
| https://www.thecut.com/article/milo-youngblut-max-snyder-
| ziv...
|
| Even without the, you know, murder stuff, I think we can do
| better for kids than another generation of "rationalists",
| considering the track record here.
| onraglanroad wrote:
| > How can I forget Harry Potter And The Methods Of
| Rationality
|
| If you find out, let me know. I wish I could.
|
| I've never read such self absorbed drivel in my life. To be
| fair, I've not read any Ayn Rand, so I might be judging
| harshly.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Fanfic reading is not like novel reading in that you don't need
| to really understand new, unfamiliar characters though.
|
| Thus it can tend to become limiting; and I say this as someone
| who actually does enjoy fanfiction.
| delichon wrote:
| > Fanfic reading is not like novel reading in that you don't
| need to really understand new, unfamiliar characters though.
|
| So the Lord of the Rings series counts as one book? I'd
| believe diminishing returns, but not one and done.
|
| Also, I thought that Yudkowsky's HPMOR fanfic had more
| interesting ideas than the whole Rowling series, which I like
| a lot.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I believe the publisher of LOTR broke it up into multiple
| books.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Yes, pedantically, and as mentioned in the Notes in the
| Text in most editions, the Lord of the Rings is a single
| book sometimes published in three volumes.
| BigGreenJorts wrote:
| Yeah I thought it was such a funny example yo pick out
| bc, yes it is!
| impossiblefork wrote:
| >Also, I thought that Yudkowsky's HPMOR fanfic had more
| interesting ideas than the whole Rowling series, which I
| like a lot.
|
| Then you do not understand writing. If Yudkowski really had
| more interesting ideas, then he would have been able to do
| HPMOR as original fiction.
|
| Rowling is actually really good, inventing very charming
| things, very fun sentences, and there's nothing even close
| in HPMOR (I have read it myself, and enjoyed it to some
| degree), but you really underestimate how good Rowling is.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _massive fanfic archives_ "
|
| Ye gods, that's like saying that youth may not be willing to
| consume a nutritious, balanced diet but we should rejoice that
| they are at least consuming vast quantities of sugar and fat.
| With vanishingly rare exceptions, fanfic is crap in textual
| form, laden to bursting with literary sins both venal and
| mortal.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Most online text is shit and doesn't count IMO. Why would you
| want to waste your time reading the thoughts of average people
| (including this one)?
| eudamoniac wrote:
| Beyond a basic level of literacy, I'm not sure it's clear that
| reading pulp is better for any defined outcome than reading
| nothing. And I'm not sure why it would be. Once you are able to
| fully grasp a level of literacy, reading more of that level or
| below probably isn't really doing anything for you.
| spicyusername wrote:
| I never understand where these anecdotes come from.
|
| I live in a rural Red State, a place you'd expect less reading,
| and my kids, and many of their friends, read full books all the
| time and have since they were quite young.
|
| The curriculum in our public school regularly requires kids to
| read full books for class, and the kids you'd expect from the
| homes you'd expect read plenty.
|
| So whatever the problem is, if there even is one, is less to do
| with school curriculums, english classes, screen time, or the
| availability of books, and more to do with the culture of many
| homes not prioritizing reading.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Okay, now what's the literacy rate in your county? What does
| the data actually say?
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| Pretty funny if it's Mississippi and they're just correct.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| In Clark County high schools in NV, they do not read a single
| whole book in English classes even in honors.
| smelendez wrote:
| Is it an aversion to assigning homework?
|
| I remember teachers assigning "read chapters 4-6 by Thursday"
| and then giving a quiz to make sure people read and
| remembered the details.
| eudamoniac wrote:
| It's an aversion to giving bad grades to the inevitable
| bulk of students who just won't read it.
| mattkrause wrote:
| Those quizzes are part of the problem. It was so
| dispiriting to read, even enjoy, the assignment and then
| get dinged because you couldn't remember whether the
| protagonist put on an otherwise irrelevant blue sweater or
| red jacket.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > I live in a rural Red State, a place you'd expect less
| reading, and my kids, and many of their friends, read full
| books all the time and have since they were quite young.
|
| > The curriculum in our public school regularly requires kids
| to read full books for class, and the kids you'd expect from
| the homes you'd expect read plenty.
|
| Reading the expected books for school is very different from
| reading a lot privately at home.
|
| I know quite many fellow pupils who read a lot privately, but
| detested reading the required books for school (they at best
| got some summaries somewhere, which in my opinion actually
| prepared you better for the tests since the people who write
| summaries typically know quite well which parts/topics of the
| books teachers consider to be important, and thus do quite some
| explanations on these).
|
| On the other hand, I know fellow pupils who barely read
| anything in their free time (they had different interests), but
| for some reason actually liked (and liked reading) the books
| that you had to read for some classes.
| apparent wrote:
| > I live in a rural Red State, a place you'd expect less
| reading
|
| I would not assume this, given that the states with the highest
| literacy rates are mostly rural and at least half red (NH, MN,
| ND, VT, SD, NE).
| theultdev wrote:
| Break that down further and you'll see it's blue cities in
| those red states that have the highest illiteracy rates. Same
| with crime. Kind of goes hand in hand. Education in blue
| cities needs to be fixed.
| haizhung wrote:
| Im seeing the same in Germany. Here's an incomplete list of all
| books that I read as mandatory high school assignments, which I
| can recall _from memory_.
|
| * Die Vorstadtkrokodile
|
| * Faust I
|
| * Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum
|
| * Antigone
|
| * Die Verwandlung
|
| * Bahnwarter Thiel
|
| * Der Sandmann
|
| * Die Rauber
|
| * Hamlet
|
| * Der Besuch der alten Dame
|
| * Im Westen nichts Neues
|
| * Unterm Rad
|
| * Woyzeck
|
| Im probably missing 5 books or something like that. Many of these
| books have had a profound impact on my views on the world, more
| than I would have guessed at the time.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| We have at least a whole generation of kids that were taught to
| read using "whole language" methods instead of phonetically. None
| of this really surprises me.
| apparent wrote:
| They're axing honors classes in our high schools so they can mix
| all the kids together for equity. But because some of the
| students can't read very well (even in 10th grade), they have to
| read the books aloud during class, since it would be inequitable
| to require the kids to read on their own at home.
|
| Not surprisingly, when you're rate-limited by read-aloud speed,
| you can't get through that many books and excerpts are a natural
| response.
| techjamie wrote:
| Probably has to do with the method for teaching reading being
| terrible for several years, depending on if the school dropped
| phonics.
|
| I saw some stuff about literacy dropping because they went from
| teaching to sound out words, to, as I understand it, basically
| just showing the word and teaching how it's said, hoping kids
| would naturally pick up the rules. This did not have good
| outcomes, and last I checked, there was a movement of schools
| going back to phonics.
| koinedad wrote:
| My kids read tons of books. But we homeschool and actual books
| are the main course of our education.
| sixtram wrote:
| When I started high school in the early '90s, there was a
| compulsory summer reading list of 10-12 books, each ranging from
| 300-800 pages. Then we had to write essays about them. This was
| just our summer homework before the new school year started. I
| didn't enjoy it at all; at the same time, I read lots of easy
| fiction, sometimes several hundred pages a day.
|
| My six year old (who is still in kindergarten) reads about 70-100
| pages per week of books aimed at eight to nine year olds.
| quasigod wrote:
| People rarely read whole books anymore. I know very few adults in
| my life who read books, lots of people are put off by reading in
| school and never give it a try in their adult life.
|
| I think the biggest offender is summer reading assignments. I
| never knew a single person that actually read their book, and
| being expected to spend time during break reading for a school
| assignment definitely creates a negative association.
|
| I loved reading as a child, up until high school. Once I
| graduated, it took years before I enjoyed it again.
| Aerroon wrote:
| The same thing happened to me.
|
| Required reading in school killed my interest in reading. When
| I graduated I was very happy that I wouldn't have to read books
| ever again.
|
| It took me about 5 years or so until anime and manga got me to
| try another fiction book. That eventually led to reading more
| books. But when school was done I really did think that I
| wasn't going to touch a (fiction) book again.
|
| ---
|
| It makes me wonder if kids in the future will have "required
| reading" where they have to play certain old video games. Will
| that make them hate video games?
| trueismywork wrote:
| I did my PhD, and so I am not averse to reading. But its
| nowadays rare to find books that have value in being read
| completely. Most of the time, I would rather read a blog post
| or a paper, books are often outdated by the time they are
| published. Books are limited to scenarios where looking at a
| complete scene of something frozen in time is still
| instructive.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-12-14 20:01 UTC)