[coldblues]

I have gained so much by reading comments on Hacker News, articles, lurking in groups and forums, watching YouTube videos. Reading books is important because they have knowledge that is not accessible in another format. It is an efficient way to condense information and pass it around. At least it used to be, when paper was more scarce. Now books get fluffed up for padding. A lot of people should be writing articles instead of books. Those who are reading a large volume of books are most certainly reading a large volume of garbage. I have gained more from reading comments on here than I would have otherwise by reading junk self-help books, romance novels, and other kinds of YA. You should be reading the right books. The classics, the culturally relevant, the historically significant, the hallmarks of a domain or expertise, etc. The medium of publishing used to be a marker of quality, a filter, a selection mechanism. But as publishing became more accessible, the amount of investment required also plummeted. And just as it allowed many creatives and geniuses access to the medium, it also introduced a large volume of cheap material that can be easily dismissed as irrelevant noise, as you should.

[throw4847285]

Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you've become addicted to instant gratification and you've rationalized it. Up is down, down is up, and low value social media comments are actually better than reading a book by an expert.

Of course, I'm just projecting. That's what's happened to me, and I'm miserable about it.

[telxosis]

I gain the most by reading books from about 1920 to about 1979.

What I don't bother reading anymore is a non-fiction, New York Times bestseller that always has the form of something like "Robustness - The new science of blah blah blah".

There is always a better book on the topic that goes much deeper and that form is the dumb version meant to sell books.

[rTX5CMRXIfFG]

I get what you mean about a great deal of books being fluff but are you sure you're not just looking at the self-help and bestseller section? Because this was my problem too, but I eventually figured out that if I really wanted to learn something or survey a subject, I'd end up with a college reference textbook. Or, audit a class and watch videos in Coursera or some other open education platform.

The irony of your getting this advice from an HN comment isn't lost on me, but if you're so concerned about fluff, I'd have thought that comments in the internet would be the first thing you'd rule out because it's so full of noise and non-expert hot takes.

[carlosjobim]

Some of the books containing the most important insights and knowledge are plagued by mountains of fluff. Having important things to say unfortunately doesn't always correlate with being a great or good author.

[YinglingHeavy]

Everything read on this website is entirely forgotten in two weeks time.