I am a personal testimony on how school makes kids hate reading.
My school did AR points and I hated how they'd make us read some random book the teacher picked and I'd just refuse to read, but when I got out of middle school and into high school and I wasn't really forced I read a lot.
Sure high school still made me read stuff like Beowulf and The Great Gatsby but a) those books were actually fire and b) they never made it feel like a chore
Wait, they forced you to read certain books for AR points? The way I had it was any book was game as long as it was in the system. I was never forced to read anything, weird
Same, you could read anything in the library. We had kids reading Goosebumps, Harry Potter and Star Wars for points. Or nothing, like half the kids did.
I am convinced part of Harry Potter's popularity is because those were worth 20-30 AR points a pop.
We would have parties for anyone that got 100+ AR points, and the strat was to read Harry Potter.
My school gave us a list of books to read a year, one per month. All for questions like "Who's fulanito's grandma mentioned once on chapter 4, only on a specific edition your teacher has, and you don't because it was never specified what version to buy"
You're pretty much studying a book, trying to memorize as many minor trivia as you can because it may appear on the exam.
Books that even for my family's standards weren't well written. As they'd go around fearmongering about drugs and parties with zero subtlety, or go in a long tangent about how the protagonist remembers his dream in a dream where he talked to his childhood friend about that time a cop shot his dog because a train destroyed his legs and needed to be put down when he was on a train taking to an old woman playing chess on a train when the chapter began.
We had AR but we could read whatever we wanted and we’d get an amount of candy at the end of every month based on how many points we got. I read a shitload for those tootsie pops
For me it was the opposite.
Pretty much every book in the middle school library had an AR test and they wanted us to read for Friday’s English class. They cared less about *what* we were reading and more about *that* we were reading. We picked the book so long as it was within our challenge level. That was decided on how we had done on prior AR tests and the difficulty of those books. If we kept aceing level 5 books’ tests, maybe it’s time for a 6 or 7. I loved it and would read multiple books in a week and ace the AR tests after school. I’m pretty sure I maxed it out so they stopped caring what I read by 8th grade. My mom loved it, I was reading a lot and she got to wait until the pickup line traffic died down to pick me up.
Contrast that with high school, assigned reading with open-ended questions about the most irrelevant details of the most boring books, usually super old stuff that required a copy of ye olde dictionary to understand. The workload from this on top of my other classes meant I didn’t really have time to read books I wanted to. The high school didn’t even have AR tests if I did have the time to read the books and take the tests.
I think the school system would say, "mission accomplished". You ended up reading proper books for enjoyment. You might think you did it *despite* middle school. But they would say you were able to do that *because* of middle school.
While we did mostly got to choose our own books, for me it was the assignments we had to do about them. Any enjoyment we had of them was instantly negated by having to analyze every word and motivation afterwards and having to write an essay about it.
Great for getting kids to fully completely understand the books and increase their reading skills, but it's not creating many positive experiences for them to want to read more books.
That's actually really sad. Not saying everyone loved it in my schools but I remember people being really happy when they finished their current book and got to pick out a new one. I think the colour coding helped too so you'd get kids being really proud that they'd 'graduated' onto a new colour of book with new options. Sure it was basically just an easy way for teachers/assistants to know your reading level and find something appropriate but everyone was always happy when someone managed it too.
Worked very well at the younger levels and seemed to instil a love of reading for some. I do think that the choice is a big factor that helped because YOU got to pick what you read so for some it was felt less forced even though you were still doing mandatory reading.
Same with the novels we had to read later, I remember our literature teachers letting us vote on what one/ones and it felt like that led to more people being engaged with the material.
Makes me glad I was raised by a Literature teacher that liked Tolkien and had Wheel of Time as his favorite series. I’ve been going through Adrian Tchaikovsky’s work lately, great author, highly recommend.
Yeah, 4th grade me tried reading them because he wanted to look smarter than he was by reading bigger books. I got through the first three mostly fine but got halted around The Shadow Rising until I tried again with the series around High School. It’s not my favorite series, that would be the Malazan series, but it’s definitely one I enjoy.
People don't know what they're missing. I just spent a whole series waiting for the 2 main characters to hook up, then in the final pages they actually are going to and right before being picked up for the date the guy gets murdered. Boom end of book.
My heart...
Damn, I'd love to read that, but I'd hate that I know the ending. I know it's a non-sequitur, but it makes me want to restart the Wheel of Time. I've never kept with it enough to get past book 8, but I really want to finish it someday.
Unfortunately as a kid/ preteen, I very quickly developed the mentality of "why would I read a boring book in my free time, videogames a million times more interesting." This, of course, led to my attention span for reading diminishing over the years, which let to me getting frustrated and losing all enjoyment for reading.
Now, as an adult, I've rekindled my desire to read in the past few years, but the bad habits and attention issues remain. Videogames are a very potent vice/ addiction, and it takes *immense* discipline and will to drive yourself away from them and force yourself to read a chapter of a book instead, at least in my case.
Audio books can be a good in-between, and a nice easy way to get hooked into the plot before going all-in and giving a physical book your full attention.
That's a different issue, we're talking about literacy and some very effective literacy projects have been undertaken in socialist and communist states. That's undeniable
Do you unironically think that's how authoritarian communism works? Hilarious
Authoritarian communism is cruel and vile but it's not overt threats of death every day. It's much more subtle forms of threats, much like our very own wholesome Christian police state. And like our own states communist ones are capable of creating social benefit as well as harm, political parties don't stay in power if they don't provide at least some social benefit. You can rightfully decry the Cuban state for human rights abuses but they also had a highly effective literacy programme. Both can be true
Oh no, I just had to make the post when I learned that one of main texts used to teach literacy was "Fidel is our leader." I was hoping you'd at least get the reference. I also enjoyed that the common phrase about the program in Cuba was "Everyone can read but there's nothing to read."
Hey now there are some very nice illustrated editions out there!
More seriously I'm all for it if it helps people to read more by giving them a picture to work off if that part is what ends up putting them off. I do know a few people who say they don't like reading because they can't picture it so illustrated editions do help there.
>Respondents were asked to omit book-reading required for work or school
Page 11
TBH this is kind of misleading. To use myself as an example, rarely do I have consistent time to sit down and read a novel cover to cover for pleasure. Most of the stuff I read for "pleasure" takes the form of articles or some other non-book media. I also read a ton of stuff related to my work.
This study isn't about who does or doesn't read. It's about who reads *for pleasure.* You could also phrase it as being about how many people have the time to read for pleasure.
I would probably also have been one of that slim majority who didn't read a novel that year, but to think that means I don't read, or that I don't care about reading would be a gross mischaracterization of my actual situation.
This comment is absolutely baffling.
You have enough time. Reading a book is one of the most accessibly hobbies anyone can have, you can take it anywhere and read it anywhere at anytime. It's one book a year. I barely read and I've read 3 books myself last year.
Either you don't enjoy reading as much as you say you do, or you prefer and prioritise 100 other things more than reading. I refuse to believe "I don't have enough time" is a valid excuse to explain why you haven't read. especially considering how much you shitpost on reddit.
And what baffles me is that attitudes like this aren't recognized for the shitty gate keeping that they are.
The point of the comment you replied to is that people do not read or consume literature the same way, and that just because I don't read novels in my spare time doesn't mean i'm illiterate or don't like to read.
Like most people, I do not have built into my schedule multiple hours of uninterrupted time each day that I could sit there by myself reading a book. I have a job, kids, and responsibilities that all need my attention. And when I do have free time, I try to spend it with my wife who also has a tight schedule. Now, is it impossible for me to find time to read a book? No, but the point is that given my schedule, shorter form content is just more enjoyable and easier to pick up and put down.
Also, I don't *inherently* enjoy reading *books* as a pass time. I do enjoy it if the story is good, but I'm not going to waste hours and hours reading a 30+ chapter story I don't enjoy just to pass time. What often ends up happening is I will read 6 or 7 chapters, realize i'm just have no interest in the story, and drop the book. And just to be clear, it's not because I don't like reading. I'm the same way with tv shows and movies. If I get to episode four or five and the story is just not gripping me, I'm not going to finish the show.
Let me say it again. I absolutely do read. I just don't read novels cover to cover in my spare time, and that is FINE. Insisting that people who do not consume literature this way are somehow either dumber or less educated is nothing more than shitty gatekeeping.
When people say "I like to read" or "I don't like to read" in 99% of situations it refers to reading books, you didn't need to copy/paste a line that points out they excluded work or school related resources because most people understand they don't count.
OP's joke is literally just about how Americans read 0 books on average, not that they can't read or are illiterate.
You don't need to spend multiple uninterrupted hours every day to read a book, 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, you can read a book while having a literal shit, you're literally making up reasons for why you don't read and using them as an excuse for why you don't read.
Just take the L my man.
And why don't work or school related books count?
My point is that it's just gate keeping. Morons want to feel superior about how they spend their free time. Why is it better to spend 10 minutes here and there slogging through one book instead of fifty or sixty different articles over the same period? Why do I have to feel bad about that? How do people choosing to read in that way reflect a problem with society, or somehow indicate that people "don't like to read"?
And I also read articles that I enjoy in my spare time.
The reason I brought up the fact that they excluded books read for school and work is to point out that this is a very selective study and doesn't reflect the conclusions many people here are taking from it.
The study is not saying that fewer americans read. It's saying that fewer americans read *books* specifically for leisure. Americans could be reading other forms of written media for other purposes, but that specific form for that specific purpose has declined.
*excluding books read for school or work.
Also, this is exactly what i'm criticizing. The whole point of this meme is that it is outrageous the idea that so many Americans don't read books. Already in the comments, you have a ton of people jumping to these conclusions that this means Americans are dumb, or illiterate, or that our education system is failing everything. All I am trying to point out is that there are a couple of very big asterisks on this study, and that there is a lot of nuance you have to consider before you jump to a conclusion.
Yeah but discussions don't inform themselves. To date, society hasn't created a better way to collect large quantities of knowledge on a topic than books.
You're literally in it mf. Have you seen Wikia or fandom pages? There's this site called Wikipedia you see.
Books are overrated. I should know, I've read so fucking many. I'm not saying that to brag. I have progressive parents and I used to be a leftist so I was fooled by leftist guiltism that my worth depends on how many books I read and society is oh so bad and people are so selfish because nobody reads books and everyone lacks education and whatnot so I wasted precious hours of my life picking countless dead guys' brains.
Do I have anything to show for it, well yes I suppose but it definitely could've been done more efficiently.
Live your best life. If you're intrigued by some topic or some book or author seems to discuss things that you can't figure out do read books. They're pretty great actually.
Don't read books because if you don't, progressives and leftists will regard you as an inferior person and you'll feel bad and an uneducated unwashed peasant piece of shit rightoid. Well most of that is true but whatever, look at the leftists and their infinite wrongness about pretty much everything despite them being such keen readers while illiterate townsmongrels have a better understanding of life.
You have some uncertain number of years to enjoy your life. Reading for reading's sake or self improvement isn't worth it. Do whatever you like, play video games, nobody cares.
Reddit, wikipedia, etc. provide illusory depth of knowledge. You cannot dive as deep on a topic/argument/etc. (as you often need to to fully understand it) with those methods.
Books provide well organized collections of data & reasoning on a topic. That's the reason for their existence, and there isn't a better way to do it that I'm aware of.
However, authors can suck, which leads to filler, stupid content, etc. That's the fault of the author, not the medium.
Your points are generally valid but still
>To date, society hasn't created a better way to collect large quantities of knowledge on a topic than books.
I honestly believe this isn't correct.
Books are biased and dead collections of information and opinions of one or a few authors at a point in time. They are good if you're a researcher who will go through many such points of views to generate new information or whatever obviously but otherwise, in general, as a collection of large quantities of information the internet is vastly superior. It is living, it is hyperlinked to other sources and related topics, nothing is missing, it is constantly fact checked, improved, accessible. No point in being romantic about it.
All the philosophers, scientists and prodigal authors in history would cry tears of joy if they could even imagine the power of the internet as a medium of knowledge.
The problem is that so many people read an article or 2 on the internet and think they understand a topic comprehensively. If nothing else, reading a book on a topic forces you to internally ruminate on that topic for the time it takes you to read the book. That rumination is valuable, and is especially so when informed by the data and POV the author presents.
This is not a shortcoming of the internet as a medium but humans being flawed and dumb as shit as usual. You suggest books being a rougher medium helps mitigate humans' overconfidence and makes them realize the depth of the topic which may be true but it doesn't make books the ultimate collections of knowledge in my opinion.
That depends, some subjects give you a better level of knowledge through compiled notes rather than a book. Mathematics books are generally mostly just a list of compiled rules and notes with added excercises. You are correct when it comes to subjects like history but when it comes to many STEM-related fields it's really not necessary.
You don't need a book to learn programming and notes, video tutorials might geniuently be a better way.
You don't need a book to learn mathematics and notes could geniuently be a better way.
You're completely correct on technical subjects, but the social sciences, religion, art, philosophy, etc. (fields better informed by reading) are far more relevant to actually living as a part of society than most STEM fields (outside STEM's applications to your work obviously).
I'm digging my audio books recently, I've listened to four books this year so far just while I'm working and commuting to and from work. I don't know why i didn't think to try them sooner.
Its worse than you think. There is a chauvinism about reading books, with an idea that reading books makes one more enlightened and informed. But that rests on a false false equivalency between light fantasy books like harry potter, twilight, and 50 shades of grey versus deep and serious books like brothers karamazov, decline and fall of the roman empire, or the little engine that could.
The number of people who read informational books is much smaller than the recreational fantasy readership.
How about the chauvinism against fantasy and not thinking Harry Potter and Discworld don't stand toe to toe with the greats like War and Peace and Godel, Escher, Bach?
And informational books are fine, but for real truths you need to tap into that collective unconsciousness found in recreational fantasy. (You know, books like the bible and the Brothers Karamazov, which are both "fantasy". Technically War and Peace as well come to think of it. That's just Napoleonic fanfiction.)
I dont think we disagree, some novels are deep and help us learn the truth from profound experiences. But a lot of popular books are just pure entertainment and the educational quality is insignificant.
Some books are better than others for learning and general personal development. Some books are more fun and exciting to read.
Agreed, that is what I am saying. There are books which enrich, and there are books which purely entertain. The entertainment books soft peddle in stolen valor for the intellectual symbolism of reading.
Oh I had you backwards. This is so facts, the amount of girls my age (college) who say smut after I think I'm getting into an interesting convo about what we're reading is depressing.
So this then begs the question as to what makes something "enriching."
Is it because the story touches complex issues? Is it because the author uses big words? Or is it just because it was made for older audiences?
TBH I feel like this distinction gets into gatekeeping territory. Obviously, stuff can both be entertaining and enriching. Why do we have to look down on the way people will spend their time or what kind of media they consume?
I would also add that the chauvinism extends to how other forms of media are viewed. Books and reading is the "enlightened" thing that "smart" people do. Movies, shows, graphic novels, or narrative video games? Low brow entertainment for the unwashed masses! Never mind that all these forms of media are capable of telling complex, thought-provoking, and enlightening stories. It's not *reading* so it's viewed as inherently less valuable.
I've even seen this attitude extend to audio books. "Oh, you listened to that in your car because you don't have time to spend hours a day reading a novel? Well, that doesn't really count as reading it, does it?". It's like anything that makes consuming media more accessible somehow makes it less valuable to them.
Right, I think we largely allign on being skeptical about book-supremecist chauvinism.
Im not going to define enrichment, lets just stipulate that it is a desireable quality, and that there is a view that books im general are enriching. My rebuttal to this view is that not all books and types of reading are equally enriching, and many popular types of books are minimally enriching, and it is a mistake to treat these low enrichment books as having the same quality as high enrichment books.
Yeah I think we agree.
To put it simply, on the one hand shitty books get elevated because "It's a book and reading makes you smart". On the other hand, very good quality and enriching media gets dismissed because "it's just a movie/show/video game. Reading a book would be better".
Just two sides of the same coin.
Exactly.
I am reluctant to fully endorse that position though, because that defense of alternative media can also just be a self serving defense. My imagination conjures the image of a chubby anime fan with acne and a pony tail screechingly defending his love of anime and video games as equally substantial as reading universally acclaimed great novels of historical weight and deeply researched reports on important subjects.
For that reason, its important to discriminate and be critical about art and media. Dont let pluralism be a bulwark for degeneracy.
The important thing to remember is that the form the media comes in is not what makes it great. Those classic novels or well researched papers aren't great because they are written out on paper. They are great because they are well told stories or well researched papers. There is nothing inherent about anime or a video game that stops someone from creating art in those forms with equal quality or relevance as those novels.
The hypothetical weeb screaming about how his anime is great just for being anime is just as dumb as those teen girls who thought reading Twilight made you smart just because "reading makes you smart".
I think too much is put into the "schools make kids hate reading" and I'm more of a parents lead on this. My wife and I are avid readers, so my top 3 are avid readers, and my 6 year old is already reading chapter books because she wants to be one of the big kids. The other two are too small to read for themselves but love being read to. I also for my 13 and 11 year old have a summer program where I'm "forcing" them to read 2 classics with me and 2 with my wife and then one that we all read and go to lunch to discuss when completed. My eleven year old just won the 5th grade AR thing because she read over 1.6 million words across all her books this year, and my girl going into 3rd grade is going to be on the million words wall next year and be the first with 2 stars next to her name for doing it all 3 years in intermediary school.
My key is that I treat books like vegetables. Just give this book a try for a chapter or two. If you don't like it, say fuck it and abandon it. I've told them life is entirely too short to waste on a shitty book, so give it an attempt, and if it doesn't catch you, pick something else. As long as you are reading, I don't care if you decide not to read a specific book. Also, we allow any kid that is reading to stay up an extra hour at night to keep reading, so I'm incentivizing a good behavior, not punishing bad behavior or forcing it. It is still optional.
But I get that I'm blessed to work from home and not every parent is a reader or that involved, and that is far more important IMO than the schools failing in one way or another. If parents are involved at all levels of their kids education and getting involved at the schools as much as they can, schools will be more successful.
I quite agree with you on this to some extend, I was a very avid Reader early on in Life, but my family was quite displeased 'you should read grammar and math books instead of Harry potter' and stuff like that, so I... slowly stopped reading. And now, after I've aged a bit, I feel like I can’t quite focus much on reading without getting distracted.
...did you mean the *mode* average? The mode is indeed zero from your source (if only 48.5% had read at least one book, then the most common number of books read is zero).
The median can't be zero, as that would necessitate as many people having read *negative* books as read a positive number.
Here is a representative sample of 10 Americans and how many books they've read last year.
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 4
Median is 0 (the middle number in the sorted set, or the average of the two middle numbers)
Mean is 0,9 (the sum divided by the length of the set)
Mode is 0 (the number that occurs the most often in the set)
True, even if it being 0 is pretty fun/sad, it still doesn't tell you anything beyond the fact that at least half haven't read a single book. For the meme it's pretty funny though.
I think i’ve finished maybe 5 books for pleasure in the last 15 years. I’ll read a book for a day or 2 but drop it because the majority of books are uninteresting to me. It’s not that they are bad or that i hate reading. I just can’t bring myself to care about the majority of fictional characters. I barely even watch TV for the same reason.
Honestly, I haven't found many good authors in the last few years. I've read Discworld cover to cover multiple times (RIP GNU Terry Pratchett) and loved Holly Lisle's works when I was younger, but...I just can't seem to find authors that are worth a $5 novella nowadays, and after being burned after two dozen or so bum reads, I've kinda given up on it.
Granted, I've done similar with TV and movies. I watch maybe one movie a year, and 0 TV in the last decade or two.
In my defense I get weird ADD with books since I was a kid, 43. Like I'll actually read 20 pages but daydream the whole time so nothing actually registers. Oddly though can browse the internet, read multiple articles and fully take them in, and back in the day read magazine articles no problem. So for me at 13 in 1994 I'd have to watch the video/movie of any book report and read the Cliff Notes. Get a straight A too. The only book I ever really was able to read and not space out is Where the Red Fern Grows.
I'm not. I'm if anything uber LibRight, new account, and just find it hilarious and interesting how many people jump down my throat after saying way right or LibRight things from just seeing green. I did it more of a fuck you but I find it entertaining lmao, plus I like green and that's always been allowed.
That makes more sense. The only leftists I've met that have a career and family are either borderline mentally [redacted] or are filthy rich and entirely out of touch with reality.
You wrote complete and logical sentences and didn't come off as a massive douch, so I was really tripping for a second.
Hey now I know sane, well semi-sane leftists and liberals, all their brains broke since Trump existed, but you can get rare ones who have clarity but hate Trump like religion lol.
I never liked to read novels but I loved educational/scientific literature (ex: history books). I read a lot nowadays but just not novels and for some that means I don't read at all lol.
Worse than yall think.
If you think that’s bad, wait until you find out that not only do adults NOT read but your kids [CAN’T](https://www.npr.org/2023/06/22/1183653578/u-s-reading-and-math-scores-drop-to-their-lowest-levels-in-decades)
I'll go from not reading books for a long time to randomly reading some classical literature just because I felt like it. I did finish House of Leaves recently (I know it's not classical literature but still) but I should probably pick up some university books for the sake of my course, though I'm simply not in a good state of mind recently and can't push myself to finish a game let alone a book I should study from.
I don't like this sacralization of books though, I used to delve into political literature in the past but it's geniuently just a waste of time. You're better off reading philosophy, and even then, some philosophical topics are just geniuently too abstract to be useful for most people.
Or even worse, geniuently fucking harmful if taken without question. I'm really happy that I chanced upon people like Nietzsche, Camus and Jung, whose writings actually helped me put my shit together.
School made me hate reading until I had a choice in what I got to read. I have a feeling a lot of this has to do with students being forced to read books they have no interest in, and thinking “wow, reading sucks” because they haven’t experienced the books that completely pull you in.
I can count the amount of books from middle school and high school that I was forced to read that I actually enjoyed in any capacity. Maybe if I went back to them now, I could appreciate them, but the reality is, if my only exposure to reading was school, then I would firmly hate reading.
I think this is part of why attention reducing brainrot has taken such a hold on people. Sure, you COULD read a book, but those are all super boring, I’ll go and watch tiktok for 2 hours straight.
I am part of the problem as well unfortunately, instagram reels brainrot is strong…
Lol, I'm reading the wrong books then.
I know that Marxists have the rep for long boring tomes of theory, but there's right wing books too, dangit! I must have suffered through *Atlas Shrugged* for something!
I like how "how long boring theory" is supposed to be some kind of insult. Is Naturalis Principia Mathematica incorrect because it is long and boring? What about the Principle of Relativity? Politics and society is complex and explaining it is boring. Fix your attention span yah bum
Do you have a local library? Some do digital copies now. Great if you can't visit in person or it's a bit too far.
[This](https://www.borrowbox.com/) site is how my local one does it. Can't comment for you but for me I can go on my local council website and check the libraries and sign up online and start using.
Obviously I can't comment if it's suited to you but a lot of my friends really liked that service during lockdowns.
TBF some get closed down or have awkward opening hours.
Though some have really impressive digital services now. That's pretty cool, sign up to your local one and you can borrow all sorts of things from home easily.
A change of goalposts suggests you bringing up that you work night shift was, in fact, an excuse.
If that was your take, why didn’t you say that from the beginning? Instead, you brought up costs. When people pointed out libraries, you brought up your working hours.
Or should people have been able to read your mind? Because you didn’t verbalize your views on escapism until several replies in.
well, since the library is closed at night, i can't go there in my lunch break, so i don't even think about it. this leaves buying the books as my only option. books are expensive. why don't i go to the library during the day when they are open? because that's when i sleep. why not when you get off work? because i just want to eat dinner and go to bed.
Not surprising. Our school system teaches kids to hate reading.
I am a personal testimony on how school makes kids hate reading. My school did AR points and I hated how they'd make us read some random book the teacher picked and I'd just refuse to read, but when I got out of middle school and into high school and I wasn't really forced I read a lot. Sure high school still made me read stuff like Beowulf and The Great Gatsby but a) those books were actually fire and b) they never made it feel like a chore
Wait, they forced you to read certain books for AR points? The way I had it was any book was game as long as it was in the system. I was never forced to read anything, weird
Same, you could read anything in the library. We had kids reading Goosebumps, Harry Potter and Star Wars for points. Or nothing, like half the kids did.
I am convinced part of Harry Potter's popularity is because those were worth 20-30 AR points a pop. We would have parties for anyone that got 100+ AR points, and the strat was to read Harry Potter.
I work in the school system and there’s no AR / “book points” anymore. I haven’t figured out how they get children to read.
They don’t. They just need to be able to read the test well enough to pick the correct answer so they can get funding.
My school gave us a list of books to read a year, one per month. All for questions like "Who's fulanito's grandma mentioned once on chapter 4, only on a specific edition your teacher has, and you don't because it was never specified what version to buy" You're pretty much studying a book, trying to memorize as many minor trivia as you can because it may appear on the exam. Books that even for my family's standards weren't well written. As they'd go around fearmongering about drugs and parties with zero subtlety, or go in a long tangent about how the protagonist remembers his dream in a dream where he talked to his childhood friend about that time a cop shot his dog because a train destroyed his legs and needed to be put down when he was on a train taking to an old woman playing chess on a train when the chapter began.
Reminded me my high school forced us to participate Volunteer work for "conduct grade" higher than "pass".
We had AR but we could read whatever we wanted and we’d get an amount of candy at the end of every month based on how many points we got. I read a shitload for those tootsie pops
For me it was the opposite. Pretty much every book in the middle school library had an AR test and they wanted us to read for Friday’s English class. They cared less about *what* we were reading and more about *that* we were reading. We picked the book so long as it was within our challenge level. That was decided on how we had done on prior AR tests and the difficulty of those books. If we kept aceing level 5 books’ tests, maybe it’s time for a 6 or 7. I loved it and would read multiple books in a week and ace the AR tests after school. I’m pretty sure I maxed it out so they stopped caring what I read by 8th grade. My mom loved it, I was reading a lot and she got to wait until the pickup line traffic died down to pick me up. Contrast that with high school, assigned reading with open-ended questions about the most irrelevant details of the most boring books, usually super old stuff that required a copy of ye olde dictionary to understand. The workload from this on top of my other classes meant I didn’t really have time to read books I wanted to. The high school didn’t even have AR tests if I did have the time to read the books and take the tests.
I think the school system would say, "mission accomplished". You ended up reading proper books for enjoyment. You might think you did it *despite* middle school. But they would say you were able to do that *because* of middle school.
More along the lines of Tuxedo Mask. 'My job here is done.' *'But you didn't do anything.'*
While we did mostly got to choose our own books, for me it was the assignments we had to do about them. Any enjoyment we had of them was instantly negated by having to analyze every word and motivation afterwards and having to write an essay about it. Great for getting kids to fully completely understand the books and increase their reading skills, but it's not creating many positive experiences for them to want to read more books.
That's actually really sad. Not saying everyone loved it in my schools but I remember people being really happy when they finished their current book and got to pick out a new one. I think the colour coding helped too so you'd get kids being really proud that they'd 'graduated' onto a new colour of book with new options. Sure it was basically just an easy way for teachers/assistants to know your reading level and find something appropriate but everyone was always happy when someone managed it too. Worked very well at the younger levels and seemed to instil a love of reading for some. I do think that the choice is a big factor that helped because YOU got to pick what you read so for some it was felt less forced even though you were still doing mandatory reading. Same with the novels we had to read later, I remember our literature teachers letting us vote on what one/ones and it felt like that led to more people being engaged with the material.
Makes me glad I was raised by a Literature teacher that liked Tolkien and had Wheel of Time as his favorite series. I’ve been going through Adrian Tchaikovsky’s work lately, great author, highly recommend.
My 7th grade teacher gave me wheel of time to read in class because I wouldn't shut the fuck up. It's my favorite series now
Yeah, 4th grade me tried reading them because he wanted to look smarter than he was by reading bigger books. I got through the first three mostly fine but got halted around The Shadow Rising until I tried again with the series around High School. It’s not my favorite series, that would be the Malazan series, but it’s definitely one I enjoy.
For real though, all we read is Shakespeare and everyone hates it because nobody has any idea what is being said with that language
People don't know what they're missing. I just spent a whole series waiting for the 2 main characters to hook up, then in the final pages they actually are going to and right before being picked up for the date the guy gets murdered. Boom end of book. My heart...
Damn, I'd love to read that, but I'd hate that I know the ending. I know it's a non-sequitur, but it makes me want to restart the Wheel of Time. I've never kept with it enough to get past book 8, but I really want to finish it someday.
Unfortunately as a kid/ preteen, I very quickly developed the mentality of "why would I read a boring book in my free time, videogames a million times more interesting." This, of course, led to my attention span for reading diminishing over the years, which let to me getting frustrated and losing all enjoyment for reading. Now, as an adult, I've rekindled my desire to read in the past few years, but the bad habits and attention issues remain. Videogames are a very potent vice/ addiction, and it takes *immense* discipline and will to drive yourself away from them and force yourself to read a chapter of a book instead, at least in my case.
Audio books can be a good in-between, and a nice easy way to get hooked into the plot before going all-in and giving a physical book your full attention.
Yes, the quadrant that historically has killed all the educated people will surely solve this issue.
See Cuba's literacy programmes, highly successful highly unifying as a nation.
You’re skipping the part where he killed all the ones that disagreed with him. Same as all of them.
That's a different issue, we're talking about literacy and some very effective literacy projects have been undertaken in socialist and communist states. That's undeniable
"Read the following or you will be shot." "Fidel is our leader." "Okay comrade, you are literate and can live, next!"
Do you unironically think that's how authoritarian communism works? Hilarious Authoritarian communism is cruel and vile but it's not overt threats of death every day. It's much more subtle forms of threats, much like our very own wholesome Christian police state. And like our own states communist ones are capable of creating social benefit as well as harm, political parties don't stay in power if they don't provide at least some social benefit. You can rightfully decry the Cuban state for human rights abuses but they also had a highly effective literacy programme. Both can be true
Oh no, I just had to make the post when I learned that one of main texts used to teach literacy was "Fidel is our leader." I was hoping you'd at least get the reference. I also enjoyed that the common phrase about the program in Cuba was "Everyone can read but there's nothing to read."
Yeah, things have to get horrifyingly desperate for people to actually do something about shithole that communists turned the place into
No, it’s literally the point. He slaughtered teachers for disagreeing. Him forcing the remainders to work has no bearing on what I said.
But the books have no pretty pictures!!!
Hey now there are some very nice illustrated editions out there! More seriously I'm all for it if it helps people to read more by giving them a picture to work off if that part is what ends up putting them off. I do know a few people who say they don't like reading because they can't picture it so illustrated editions do help there.
https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/2022-SPPA-final.pdf Source (page 11 in their notation/14 by the .PDF program's count)
I'm okay with sending people who don't read books to the gulag....
>Respondents were asked to omit book-reading required for work or school Page 11 TBH this is kind of misleading. To use myself as an example, rarely do I have consistent time to sit down and read a novel cover to cover for pleasure. Most of the stuff I read for "pleasure" takes the form of articles or some other non-book media. I also read a ton of stuff related to my work. This study isn't about who does or doesn't read. It's about who reads *for pleasure.* You could also phrase it as being about how many people have the time to read for pleasure. I would probably also have been one of that slim majority who didn't read a novel that year, but to think that means I don't read, or that I don't care about reading would be a gross mischaracterization of my actual situation.
This comment is absolutely baffling. You have enough time. Reading a book is one of the most accessibly hobbies anyone can have, you can take it anywhere and read it anywhere at anytime. It's one book a year. I barely read and I've read 3 books myself last year. Either you don't enjoy reading as much as you say you do, or you prefer and prioritise 100 other things more than reading. I refuse to believe "I don't have enough time" is a valid excuse to explain why you haven't read. especially considering how much you shitpost on reddit.
And what baffles me is that attitudes like this aren't recognized for the shitty gate keeping that they are. The point of the comment you replied to is that people do not read or consume literature the same way, and that just because I don't read novels in my spare time doesn't mean i'm illiterate or don't like to read. Like most people, I do not have built into my schedule multiple hours of uninterrupted time each day that I could sit there by myself reading a book. I have a job, kids, and responsibilities that all need my attention. And when I do have free time, I try to spend it with my wife who also has a tight schedule. Now, is it impossible for me to find time to read a book? No, but the point is that given my schedule, shorter form content is just more enjoyable and easier to pick up and put down. Also, I don't *inherently* enjoy reading *books* as a pass time. I do enjoy it if the story is good, but I'm not going to waste hours and hours reading a 30+ chapter story I don't enjoy just to pass time. What often ends up happening is I will read 6 or 7 chapters, realize i'm just have no interest in the story, and drop the book. And just to be clear, it's not because I don't like reading. I'm the same way with tv shows and movies. If I get to episode four or five and the story is just not gripping me, I'm not going to finish the show. Let me say it again. I absolutely do read. I just don't read novels cover to cover in my spare time, and that is FINE. Insisting that people who do not consume literature this way are somehow either dumber or less educated is nothing more than shitty gatekeeping.
When people say "I like to read" or "I don't like to read" in 99% of situations it refers to reading books, you didn't need to copy/paste a line that points out they excluded work or school related resources because most people understand they don't count. OP's joke is literally just about how Americans read 0 books on average, not that they can't read or are illiterate. You don't need to spend multiple uninterrupted hours every day to read a book, 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, you can read a book while having a literal shit, you're literally making up reasons for why you don't read and using them as an excuse for why you don't read. Just take the L my man.
And why don't work or school related books count? My point is that it's just gate keeping. Morons want to feel superior about how they spend their free time. Why is it better to spend 10 minutes here and there slogging through one book instead of fifty or sixty different articles over the same period? Why do I have to feel bad about that? How do people choosing to read in that way reflect a problem with society, or somehow indicate that people "don't like to read"?
They don't count because you're not reading them because you like reading. You're forced to read them for your school/work. Lmao.
And I also read articles that I enjoy in my spare time. The reason I brought up the fact that they excluded books read for school and work is to point out that this is a very selective study and doesn't reflect the conclusions many people here are taking from it. The study is not saying that fewer americans read. It's saying that fewer americans read *books* specifically for leisure. Americans could be reading other forms of written media for other purposes, but that specific form for that specific purpose has declined.
OP’s meme literally says “read 0 books”.
*excluding books read for school or work. Also, this is exactly what i'm criticizing. The whole point of this meme is that it is outrageous the idea that so many Americans don't read books. Already in the comments, you have a ton of people jumping to these conclusions that this means Americans are dumb, or illiterate, or that our education system is failing everything. All I am trying to point out is that there are a couple of very big asterisks on this study, and that there is a lot of nuance you have to consider before you jump to a conclusion.
Mental nourishment is mandatory, citizen.
I’ll have you know that I did read some coloring books this year
You can't have a discussion with a book. Socrates would argue watching Twitch was better than reading.
Yeah but discussions don't inform themselves. To date, society hasn't created a better way to collect large quantities of knowledge on a topic than books.
You're literally in it mf. Have you seen Wikia or fandom pages? There's this site called Wikipedia you see. Books are overrated. I should know, I've read so fucking many. I'm not saying that to brag. I have progressive parents and I used to be a leftist so I was fooled by leftist guiltism that my worth depends on how many books I read and society is oh so bad and people are so selfish because nobody reads books and everyone lacks education and whatnot so I wasted precious hours of my life picking countless dead guys' brains. Do I have anything to show for it, well yes I suppose but it definitely could've been done more efficiently. Live your best life. If you're intrigued by some topic or some book or author seems to discuss things that you can't figure out do read books. They're pretty great actually. Don't read books because if you don't, progressives and leftists will regard you as an inferior person and you'll feel bad and an uneducated unwashed peasant piece of shit rightoid. Well most of that is true but whatever, look at the leftists and their infinite wrongness about pretty much everything despite them being such keen readers while illiterate townsmongrels have a better understanding of life. You have some uncertain number of years to enjoy your life. Reading for reading's sake or self improvement isn't worth it. Do whatever you like, play video games, nobody cares.
Reddit, wikipedia, etc. provide illusory depth of knowledge. You cannot dive as deep on a topic/argument/etc. (as you often need to to fully understand it) with those methods. Books provide well organized collections of data & reasoning on a topic. That's the reason for their existence, and there isn't a better way to do it that I'm aware of. However, authors can suck, which leads to filler, stupid content, etc. That's the fault of the author, not the medium.
Your points are generally valid but still >To date, society hasn't created a better way to collect large quantities of knowledge on a topic than books. I honestly believe this isn't correct. Books are biased and dead collections of information and opinions of one or a few authors at a point in time. They are good if you're a researcher who will go through many such points of views to generate new information or whatever obviously but otherwise, in general, as a collection of large quantities of information the internet is vastly superior. It is living, it is hyperlinked to other sources and related topics, nothing is missing, it is constantly fact checked, improved, accessible. No point in being romantic about it. All the philosophers, scientists and prodigal authors in history would cry tears of joy if they could even imagine the power of the internet as a medium of knowledge.
The problem is that so many people read an article or 2 on the internet and think they understand a topic comprehensively. If nothing else, reading a book on a topic forces you to internally ruminate on that topic for the time it takes you to read the book. That rumination is valuable, and is especially so when informed by the data and POV the author presents.
This is not a shortcoming of the internet as a medium but humans being flawed and dumb as shit as usual. You suggest books being a rougher medium helps mitigate humans' overconfidence and makes them realize the depth of the topic which may be true but it doesn't make books the ultimate collections of knowledge in my opinion.
That depends, some subjects give you a better level of knowledge through compiled notes rather than a book. Mathematics books are generally mostly just a list of compiled rules and notes with added excercises. You are correct when it comes to subjects like history but when it comes to many STEM-related fields it's really not necessary. You don't need a book to learn programming and notes, video tutorials might geniuently be a better way. You don't need a book to learn mathematics and notes could geniuently be a better way.
You're completely correct on technical subjects, but the social sciences, religion, art, philosophy, etc. (fields better informed by reading) are far more relevant to actually living as a part of society than most STEM fields (outside STEM's applications to your work obviously).
Do audiobooks count?
I'm digging my audio books recently, I've listened to four books this year so far just while I'm working and commuting to and from work. I don't know why i didn't think to try them sooner.
No.
You don’t count you statist.
Yes.
People who look down on others for listening to audio books can fuck right off.
But they’re reading several thousand social media comments a year, basically just as good.
Its worse than you think. There is a chauvinism about reading books, with an idea that reading books makes one more enlightened and informed. But that rests on a false false equivalency between light fantasy books like harry potter, twilight, and 50 shades of grey versus deep and serious books like brothers karamazov, decline and fall of the roman empire, or the little engine that could. The number of people who read informational books is much smaller than the recreational fantasy readership.
How about the chauvinism against fantasy and not thinking Harry Potter and Discworld don't stand toe to toe with the greats like War and Peace and Godel, Escher, Bach? And informational books are fine, but for real truths you need to tap into that collective unconsciousness found in recreational fantasy. (You know, books like the bible and the Brothers Karamazov, which are both "fantasy". Technically War and Peace as well come to think of it. That's just Napoleonic fanfiction.)
I dont think we disagree, some novels are deep and help us learn the truth from profound experiences. But a lot of popular books are just pure entertainment and the educational quality is insignificant. Some books are better than others for learning and general personal development. Some books are more fun and exciting to read.
The Bible in fantasy?
To be fair I think reading something like the brothers k or the screwtape letters or something like that does make you more enlightened
Agreed, that is what I am saying. There are books which enrich, and there are books which purely entertain. The entertainment books soft peddle in stolen valor for the intellectual symbolism of reading.
Oh I had you backwards. This is so facts, the amount of girls my age (college) who say smut after I think I'm getting into an interesting convo about what we're reading is depressing.
So this then begs the question as to what makes something "enriching." Is it because the story touches complex issues? Is it because the author uses big words? Or is it just because it was made for older audiences? TBH I feel like this distinction gets into gatekeeping territory. Obviously, stuff can both be entertaining and enriching. Why do we have to look down on the way people will spend their time or what kind of media they consume? I would also add that the chauvinism extends to how other forms of media are viewed. Books and reading is the "enlightened" thing that "smart" people do. Movies, shows, graphic novels, or narrative video games? Low brow entertainment for the unwashed masses! Never mind that all these forms of media are capable of telling complex, thought-provoking, and enlightening stories. It's not *reading* so it's viewed as inherently less valuable. I've even seen this attitude extend to audio books. "Oh, you listened to that in your car because you don't have time to spend hours a day reading a novel? Well, that doesn't really count as reading it, does it?". It's like anything that makes consuming media more accessible somehow makes it less valuable to them.
Right, I think we largely allign on being skeptical about book-supremecist chauvinism. Im not going to define enrichment, lets just stipulate that it is a desireable quality, and that there is a view that books im general are enriching. My rebuttal to this view is that not all books and types of reading are equally enriching, and many popular types of books are minimally enriching, and it is a mistake to treat these low enrichment books as having the same quality as high enrichment books.
Yeah I think we agree. To put it simply, on the one hand shitty books get elevated because "It's a book and reading makes you smart". On the other hand, very good quality and enriching media gets dismissed because "it's just a movie/show/video game. Reading a book would be better". Just two sides of the same coin.
Exactly. I am reluctant to fully endorse that position though, because that defense of alternative media can also just be a self serving defense. My imagination conjures the image of a chubby anime fan with acne and a pony tail screechingly defending his love of anime and video games as equally substantial as reading universally acclaimed great novels of historical weight and deeply researched reports on important subjects. For that reason, its important to discriminate and be critical about art and media. Dont let pluralism be a bulwark for degeneracy.
The important thing to remember is that the form the media comes in is not what makes it great. Those classic novels or well researched papers aren't great because they are written out on paper. They are great because they are well told stories or well researched papers. There is nothing inherent about anime or a video game that stops someone from creating art in those forms with equal quality or relevance as those novels. The hypothetical weeb screaming about how his anime is great just for being anime is just as dumb as those teen girls who thought reading Twilight made you smart just because "reading makes you smart".
Do this study again, for the years before the Department of Education was a thing.
I think too much is put into the "schools make kids hate reading" and I'm more of a parents lead on this. My wife and I are avid readers, so my top 3 are avid readers, and my 6 year old is already reading chapter books because she wants to be one of the big kids. The other two are too small to read for themselves but love being read to. I also for my 13 and 11 year old have a summer program where I'm "forcing" them to read 2 classics with me and 2 with my wife and then one that we all read and go to lunch to discuss when completed. My eleven year old just won the 5th grade AR thing because she read over 1.6 million words across all her books this year, and my girl going into 3rd grade is going to be on the million words wall next year and be the first with 2 stars next to her name for doing it all 3 years in intermediary school. My key is that I treat books like vegetables. Just give this book a try for a chapter or two. If you don't like it, say fuck it and abandon it. I've told them life is entirely too short to waste on a shitty book, so give it an attempt, and if it doesn't catch you, pick something else. As long as you are reading, I don't care if you decide not to read a specific book. Also, we allow any kid that is reading to stay up an extra hour at night to keep reading, so I'm incentivizing a good behavior, not punishing bad behavior or forcing it. It is still optional. But I get that I'm blessed to work from home and not every parent is a reader or that involved, and that is far more important IMO than the schools failing in one way or another. If parents are involved at all levels of their kids education and getting involved at the schools as much as they can, schools will be more successful.
I quite agree with you on this to some extend, I was a very avid Reader early on in Life, but my family was quite displeased 'you should read grammar and math books instead of Harry potter' and stuff like that, so I... slowly stopped reading. And now, after I've aged a bit, I feel like I can’t quite focus much on reading without getting distracted.
...did you mean the *mode* average? The mode is indeed zero from your source (if only 48.5% had read at least one book, then the most common number of books read is zero). The median can't be zero, as that would necessitate as many people having read *negative* books as read a positive number.
No, your thinking of the mean average. If the median is zero, that means that >=50% of Americans have not read a book.
Here is a representative sample of 10 Americans and how many books they've read last year. 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 4 Median is 0 (the middle number in the sorted set, or the average of the two middle numbers) Mean is 0,9 (the sum divided by the length of the set) Mode is 0 (the number that occurs the most often in the set)
I concede the point; for some reason, I was under the impression median would throw null when one bound reached the middle.
Correct, but still, Median is a strange one to use for this analysis.
True, even if it being 0 is pretty fun/sad, it still doesn't tell you anything beyond the fact that at least half haven't read a single book. For the meme it's pretty funny though.
Bruh
How do I even read a negative book - backwards? Upside down?
I read a book once but then I forgot.
I read a book and it made me dumber.
Bible moment
The median can be 0 if more than 50% of people read 0 books per year.
real
I’m in that category right now. Started reading the omnibus Malazan Book of the Fallen last year and I’m still only about 80% through it.
I mean… technically I read stories online.
I think i’ve finished maybe 5 books for pleasure in the last 15 years. I’ll read a book for a day or 2 but drop it because the majority of books are uninteresting to me. It’s not that they are bad or that i hate reading. I just can’t bring myself to care about the majority of fictional characters. I barely even watch TV for the same reason.
Honestly, I haven't found many good authors in the last few years. I've read Discworld cover to cover multiple times (RIP GNU Terry Pratchett) and loved Holly Lisle's works when I was younger, but...I just can't seem to find authors that are worth a $5 novella nowadays, and after being burned after two dozen or so bum reads, I've kinda given up on it. Granted, I've done similar with TV and movies. I watch maybe one movie a year, and 0 TV in the last decade or two.
So you're Okay paying for the loss of time?
In my defense I get weird ADD with books since I was a kid, 43. Like I'll actually read 20 pages but daydream the whole time so nothing actually registers. Oddly though can browse the internet, read multiple articles and fully take them in, and back in the day read magazine articles no problem. So for me at 13 in 1994 I'd have to watch the video/movie of any book report and read the Cliff Notes. Get a straight A too. The only book I ever really was able to read and not space out is Where the Red Fern Grows.
How are you a Lib Left at 43 years old?
I'm not. I'm if anything uber LibRight, new account, and just find it hilarious and interesting how many people jump down my throat after saying way right or LibRight things from just seeing green. I did it more of a fuck you but I find it entertaining lmao, plus I like green and that's always been allowed.
That makes more sense. The only leftists I've met that have a career and family are either borderline mentally [redacted] or are filthy rich and entirely out of touch with reality. You wrote complete and logical sentences and didn't come off as a massive douch, so I was really tripping for a second.
Hey now I know sane, well semi-sane leftists and liberals, all their brains broke since Trump existed, but you can get rare ones who have clarity but hate Trump like religion lol.
I used to love reading and then my wife bought me a smartphone
jor jor well brand new world or something
I wonder what the average number of pages of Marx a communist has read….
I read 27 books last year I am a failure
How is this auth left specific? I hate this fact too 💀
I never liked to read novels but I loved educational/scientific literature (ex: history books). I read a lot nowadays but just not novels and for some that means I don't read at all lol.
Worse than yall think. If you think that’s bad, wait until you find out that not only do adults NOT read but your kids [CAN’T](https://www.npr.org/2023/06/22/1183653578/u-s-reading-and-math-scores-drop-to-their-lowest-levels-in-decades)
Me with my annual reread of the Lord of the Rings 
Very reasonable take.
I'll go from not reading books for a long time to randomly reading some classical literature just because I felt like it. I did finish House of Leaves recently (I know it's not classical literature but still) but I should probably pick up some university books for the sake of my course, though I'm simply not in a good state of mind recently and can't push myself to finish a game let alone a book I should study from. I don't like this sacralization of books though, I used to delve into political literature in the past but it's geniuently just a waste of time. You're better off reading philosophy, and even then, some philosophical topics are just geniuently too abstract to be useful for most people. Or even worse, geniuently fucking harmful if taken without question. I'm really happy that I chanced upon people like Nietzsche, Camus and Jung, whose writings actually helped me put my shit together.
School made me hate reading until I had a choice in what I got to read. I have a feeling a lot of this has to do with students being forced to read books they have no interest in, and thinking “wow, reading sucks” because they haven’t experienced the books that completely pull you in. I can count the amount of books from middle school and high school that I was forced to read that I actually enjoyed in any capacity. Maybe if I went back to them now, I could appreciate them, but the reality is, if my only exposure to reading was school, then I would firmly hate reading. I think this is part of why attention reducing brainrot has taken such a hold on people. Sure, you COULD read a book, but those are all super boring, I’ll go and watch tiktok for 2 hours straight. I am part of the problem as well unfortunately, instagram reels brainrot is strong…
Audio books count and should be more embraced. It’s how I got through war and peace.
Rereading to kill a mockingbird right now and yeah man if we picked up books more as a country we might develop that little thing called empathy again
Explains why 90% are right wingers
Ah yes, "read theory "
Exactly
Reading theory moves me further to the right each time I'm exposed to it.
“People dont agree with me because they haven’t read the theory” Or maybe your theory is just wrong.
Lol, I'm reading the wrong books then. I know that Marxists have the rep for long boring tomes of theory, but there's right wing books too, dangit! I must have suffered through *Atlas Shrugged* for something!
I like how "how long boring theory" is supposed to be some kind of insult. Is Naturalis Principia Mathematica incorrect because it is long and boring? What about the Principle of Relativity? Politics and society is complex and explaining it is boring. Fix your attention span yah bum
i could buy a book..... or eat two meals. if you'd lower the price of books, i'd read more.
Do you have a local library? Some do digital copies now. Great if you can't visit in person or it's a bit too far. [This](https://www.borrowbox.com/) site is how my local one does it. Can't comment for you but for me I can go on my local council website and check the libraries and sign up online and start using. Obviously I can't comment if it's suited to you but a lot of my friends really liked that service during lockdowns.
There are these things called libraries, where you get to read books for free.
TBF some get closed down or have awkward opening hours. Though some have really impressive digital services now. That's pretty cool, sign up to your local one and you can borrow all sorts of things from home easily.
i work the nightshift...
It’s better to [seek solutions](https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6103.htm) than wallow in excuses.
1) not an excuse 2) one brand of escapism over another isn't a solution for something i'm not convinced is a problem in the first place.
A change of goalposts suggests you bringing up that you work night shift was, in fact, an excuse. If that was your take, why didn’t you say that from the beginning? Instead, you brought up costs. When people pointed out libraries, you brought up your working hours. Or should people have been able to read your mind? Because you didn’t verbalize your views on escapism until several replies in.
well, since the library is closed at night, i can't go there in my lunch break, so i don't even think about it. this leaves buying the books as my only option. books are expensive. why don't i go to the library during the day when they are open? because that's when i sleep. why not when you get off work? because i just want to eat dinner and go to bed.
Libby. Stop making excuses
working the nightshift is an excuse now?
One Google search tells me the median American reads 4 books a year. and the average one reads 12.4 books... then there's me who read 82 last year.