[rustyhancock]

I'm similar, I think perhaps it's a generational thing which slightly modified the title in a pedantic way.

The people who "grew up" with text books still crack new ones and old ones.

The current generation turning 18-21 don't.

It surprises me because I'm often asked why I knew X or Y odd perhaps esoteric fact or design pattern. Usually it's because I came across it in a book interested in something else.

It's that peripheral knowledge that is being lost when people use LLMs, and quick start guides.

Historically you'd have a team where skill, knowledge and experience was very variable but each person often brought another piece of the puzzle to a team.

Increasingly people have narrow knowledge "bases".

Does it matter? Perhaps not but it definitely has taken some of the joy of discussing problems and solutions out of my working life.

[whimblepop]

> It surprises me because I'm often asked why I knew X or Y odd perhaps esoteric fact or design pattern. Usually it's because I came across it in a book interested in something else.

It was like this in the days when the primary shortcut was StackOverflow as well. People who are allergic to RTFM treat things that are covered in the docs as "esoteric" knowledge because they never read anything except as a shortcut to solving their immediate problem.

I think the stats are clear that reading is in decline in general, though. I'm sure LLMs will add to this much like YouTube has.

[graemep]

Surely people still use textbooks for formal education? This has to be something that happens later.

[shinjitsu]

I actually require the book the Jon Bodner was talking about in a class I teach every couple of years. The students who do well (the ones you would want to hire) will read it, the others will skim or try to summarize it

[floxy]

Professors putting textbooks in the syllabus and students reading those texts aren't necessarily the same.

[rustyhancock]

This study tracked study resource usage in 2021 and mentions a study in 2006.

In 2006 medical students spent 10.8hours per week studying with textbooks, on 2021 4.2hours.

So under 40% the textbook usage as 2006. That's a fairly precipitous decline and it's pre-LLMs being mainstream. I down chatgpt 4/5 have sent the students back to the library!

It mentions question banks have expanded as have online resources. Also learning style has changed from lecture based to problem based learning.

I can't say this is objectively bad. But that I'm sure it contributes to narrowed knowledge bases.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8651945/

[fastasucan]

The last three years more or less none of my students have bought the textbook for the subject. That is pretty mind blowing. In turn they expect a complete textbook from my lecture notes, which isn't possible.

I get that textbooks are getting more expensive though.