Probably a very familiar story on here, but I’ve been a lifelong avid reader. And I grew up before the internet. Growing up as a kid in suburban America, books were the best. They were the most effective way of cognitively being able to imagine the life of someone living in the Cambodian killing fields, or a fantasy world, or how our solar system works, or what they think the pyramids were for.
As an adult, I’ve waxed and waned with reading depending on what’s going on in my life. But as a nerd who went into engineering, I’ve obviously spent a lot of time on the internet and gone deep into discussions on /r/TrueAskReddit and other random subreddits, and I’ve had experiences of seeing other people’s perspective that are so personal and from another culture that the cognitive stimulation of my imagination is overloaded more than I remember having with books. Not only am I reading about how family life in China is with filial piety and stuff like that, I see a post from yesterday from a guy who grew up there and can talk personally about it! And there’s other Chinese people disagreeing and agreeing and having a discussion about it! And I can ask questions and they’ll answer! Same with any topic, say an aerospace engineer talking about how they designed wings or rotors or something. I can go to a subreddit for women trying to conceive and read heart-wrenching and tear-jerking stories that are more effective than many books, fiction or non-fiction, because this just raw emotions being written down at the time by people really going through it.
When I look at the typical new books that inquisitive thinking adults tend to gravitate towards in the modern day, I think of things like [Bill Gates’ reading list](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books). The website may update, so today it’s a book about why climate change progress is going faster than you think, a book about how cells in the body work, a book about “how the world works” like how farming has changed from prehistoric times to modern day, and a self-helpy sounding kind of book about the mindset of a winner and not getting down about your failures and remaining “in the zone”.
I’ve tried to read books like that, but they honestly don’t do it for me. Most self help-y kind of books are written with very vague generalities that I find difficulty in applying to my own life, or I think “duh, isn’t that obvious?” or it’s really just a successful person low-key bragging or using their life as the only example. With books about technology like with farming I always have this nagging thought that the text is outdated just by virtue of being a book. The writing has to be finalized months before it’s published, and the research is done before that. So is this book really going to be talking about the cool new advancement in GPS automated tractors that came out a few months ago? Like I’d be able to see a livestream of on social media right this moment? With science books, I have this nagging thought that I’m only seeing one person’s perspective, and I can’t stop myself from finishing a book and googling to see all the scientists that disagree. I think from the internet I’m so used to seeing a discussion and debate and back and forth that reading a few hundred pages from a single person’s perspective just seems limiting.
Even with many topics I’m interested in, I feel this when I read those books. For example, I’m a near daily reader of long-form essays, like on the Atlantic or Slate or whatever. A few years back there was a viral essay on how millennials are [always burnt out](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work). This is one of my favorite topics, it pulls together anthropology and capitalism and changing lifestyles. Because the essay did so well, the author [wrote a book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48930297-can-t-even). I read the book and thought that the extra pages kind of didn’t add much to the thesis that wasn’t already there in the original work. There were a few more examples, but it kind of just got repetitive. Recently there was a book by Tim Alberta about [Evangelical voting preferences](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112975131-the-kingdom-the-power-and-the-glory). I find this topic really interesting as well. But again, I didn’t feel like I got any more of the “root idea” than I did when I read the [Atlantic excerpt](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/christian-nationalism-danger/676974/) and a bunch of reviews that discussed the book. In fact I think I got more interesting ideas out of long form interviews like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErbTbyvwpdQ) and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdnMZ8nPCQ). Not because the classic “you kids want everything in video form and not to read”. But because the interviewers were able to get him to expand on these ideas, and push back and have a real discussion about it.
All of these thoughts swirling around in my head make me think – are certain forms of non-fiction books kind of “obsolete” with the internet? Why would I ever buy a book on Python programming when I have the internet with infinite examples? Why would I ever buy a book on training a dog when I can ask my specific question on a forum or subreddit and attach a video of me trying it out with my dog? I always would read books in order to vacuum up as much information and expand my worldview. But the high I used to get from reading books for a lot of these things is way outstripped by the high I get from the multidimensional, personalized method of information processing on the internet. Even me posting this very question is an example of that. I don’t have to wait until I read a book where a character has the same malaise towards reading as me, and circle the quote and put a post-it on that page. I can just ask it right this minute when I had this thought and probably get tons of personalized responses.
I still very much love reading fiction, and biographies/autobiographies, which are types of books that I don’t think the internet has dampened my enjoyment of. But it seems like most modern day adult non-fiction is just so ephemeral. Is anyone ever going to read Andrew Cuomo’s book on leadership during Covid ever again? Is any book on Israel-Palestine going to be useful in understanding the Middle East as it is today if it came out before last year’s attacks?
I know the common view is that the internet is “junk food” or “empty calories” when it comes to reading, and books are still the best way of becoming well-read or knowledgeable. But I’m not so sure nowadays. I sometimes feel like if my goal is the cognitive hoovering up of a variety of information about many topics that can be relevant to my understanding of life, the human condition and the world as it is today, my reading diet is best supplemented with lots of internet reading over just trying to rack up my book count.
by Fickle-Syllabub6730