[vesky]

I disagree with you. People have very different styles when it comes to absorbing information. I fully understand why that kid would choose to listen to music instead of random coffee-shop noises. Music it's repetitive and easy to ignore whereas environmental noises might be more distracting. I often find myself able to concentrate easier with music than with random sounds or even silence in some cases. Silence makes my mind wander and stray away from what I'm trying to pay attention to.

I've also read Adler's "How to Read a Book" and I don't think it's as useful as you make it out to be. Annotating is good but nowadays you can take notes easily on your phone which I found myself doing for each book I read/listen to. Also one of the advice you find in your example is how truly reading a book means reading it more than once. He mentions that the first read should be superficial and fast in order to prepare you for the second, more thorough read.