[xpct]

Question: do you think reading is fundamentally worthwhile in terms of practicality, or is there some other medium that would achieve both pleasure and better information retention?

I think it's undeniable that a lot of good comes from reading, and many here would probably agree it's better than scrolling Instagram reels or even watching YouTube videos. Still, reading by itself is just one medium that we found useful over the many years of human history: it's a way to learn about the world that surrounds us, or immerse ourselves in fantasy worlds. We as humans found text on paper to be a convenient way to share ideas relatively cheaply, while also being expressive.

I'm mentioning this only because I feel like "reading for pleasure" is the wrong framing for moral judgement, I imagine it's something more fundamental like what we perceive to be cultural activities that have lasting impact on our day-to-day. I imagine young parents nowadays are less strict on prioritizing their children's reading habits, because they themselves grew up in an environment where that wasn't strictly necessary to have relatively good career options.

The digital age opened up a few venues to cheat book reading, since there are now plentiful Reddit discussions on any classical book you're interested in, which were present even before the advent of LLMs. To play devil's advocate, is it truly worse to read a thread of people discussing an idea (i.e. HN), or read the book itself, and how do we know that? Perhaps it's the act itself of exploring the idea that's useful, not necessarily the action by which you do it? I imagine I'm not the only one who's dropped a book half-read because they felt satisfied by the author's answer halfway through.

I hope this comment wasn't too off-topic from the main point of "pleasure", it's just something I've been mulling over recently.

[forlorn_mammoth]

> Question: do you think reading is fundamentally worthwhile in terms of practicality, or is there some other medium that would achieve both pleasure and better information retention?

If your quality bar is 'better information retention' then reading is going to be hard to beat. Videos/podcasts don't measure up.

'pleasure' is hard to measure, and gets confounded because reading takes more effort than watching a video/listening to a podcast.

[protocolture]

>If your quality bar is 'better information retention' then reading is going to be hard to beat. Videos/podcasts don't measure up.

My memory is that the only things better than reading are doing it yourself, and writing about it.

[xpct]

My personal assumption has been that 'pleasure', at least partially, includes expected practical returns. I'd also guess that's at least partially true for kids: "my parents told me if I read a lot, I'll be smart when I grow up", etc.

We generally worry less if we see utility in it, and if we have people to share our hobby with. I think it's reasonable to say there's few hobbies out there without real world utility.

[watwut]

Listening to podcast is not easier then reading. It requires constant attention and does not really allow you to take a break without loosing on. In a lot of ways it is harder and more tiresome. You are free to do some other easy thing while doing it, it can be more engaging due to voices and sounds, but it does not take less effort then reading.

[xpct]

I suppose this varies depending on what type of material is covered in the podcast. We typically assume it contains surface-level content, as their primary purpose is entertainment, but the answer would probably change if we were talking about a lecture.

[watwut]

Reading for pleasure does not imply reading difficult in depth content. Reading for pleasure was reading with entertainment as a primary purpose.

Both reading and podcasts cover range of difficulties and topics.

[xpct]

Yes, we agree on this.

[nottorp]

> I hope this comment wasn't too off-topic from the main point of "pleasure"

It looks to me far away over there in the "what's my profit in reading" direction I'm afraid.

[xpct]

Fair enough :-) Do you have a theory for why we view reading, even in terms of pleasure, as favorable? I imagine it's because we see some utility in it over other activities.

[altruios]

Reading causes your brain to hallucinate. Visualization is a muscle: reading is the weights at the gym.

[asdff]

Read good english, speak good english. Read dumb english, speak dumb english.

[CuriouslyC]

I used to read a ton of fiction as a kid, and continued into my late 30s. My reading for pleasure has dropped precipitously of late though, in large part because it gives less dopamine than other things I can do that also make the "productivity" centers of my brain light up. I still read a lot, but it's skewed towards geopolitics, economics and analyses, and most if it is short-form.

[camillomiller]

It is completely off in the opposite direction

[bratwurst3000]

imho its the screen vs no screen that is the problem. Its better to have one thing for a task . for example one notebook one alarm one instrument one book etc. Our brain aint made to have so many thing cramped in one device. I think when i open a screen my brain sees all the functions of the device and cant focus well. But if I read a book my brain knowes this is the book about this and that and nothing else.