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Has anyone else noticed a sudden lack of reading comprehension skills?
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy
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I think it has something to do with everything trying to get your attention, and waste your time for metrics.
We ignore signs because we don't want to read another popup.
We skim text because we don't want to know about your life story, just the chili recipe, thanks.
We skip or misread instructions because we've been doing the job for years, and we're halfway on autopilot.
We can't find a restaurant or shop right in front of us because we're starting to learn to ignore bright colors and flashing lights.
We browse the internet while watching a movie because we've seen the same cliche Marvel movie before.
The problem is that sometimes we get so used to these things that we also do it when we shouldn't be.
Thanks for putting it in words so well. These days I have to default to 'no thanks' for most information arriving in front of my face or I get quickly overwhelmed or distracted. Re-learning how to find the important stuff in an ever-changing media landscape takes up quite some energy, especially as the brain gets older.
I have the exact same thing. I have to 'work' to 'pay attention' to text nowadays. I can spend hours painting minis or roaming a museum, but there's something about text nowadays that almost pushes my attention away.
I started preferring long form media recently. Audiobooks especially. Social media allows anyone to say a single thing that may or may not be legit, but since it's bite sized information units they don't need to back it up. Long form media requires a person to back up what they say, and having that barrier of entry filters out those who probably aren't worth listening to.
Oh yeah. I love audiobooks, podcasts, and video essays.
Me too:) do you have any recommendations off the top of your head? No genre preference, just your favorite book or video essay?
I'm a sci fi and fantasy guy. I don't think I have favorites, but I can list off some series. The Expanse, The Dark Tower, Dune up to Children of Dune, the series that starts with Ender's Game, The Foundation series, the Space Odyssey series, Stormlight Archive, the Three Body Problem series, as many books as you want from the Discworld series, The Witcher, Children of Time, etc etc etc
I couldn't name a single video essay by title. I just listen, I am entertained, and I move on. Anything by Folding Ideas is good. Those count as video essays right?
Anything you want to recommend?
Hell yeah. I just read Guards, Guards! by Pratchett and I'm working through LotR again. Dune is amazing, but I haven't continued past the original so maybe I'll read those next.
If you're into history, I've been listening to The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, it focuses on each major historical event from the perspective of the regular individual person rather than focusing on the people who happened to be in power during them, and it's pretty good so far. I also read Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky, and that was life changing. Those are two pretty political ones, though.
In terms of fiction Id recommend Cormac McCarthy -- either The Road or Blood Meridian -- The Road is a post apocalyptic story about a father traversing through the ashen environment with his son, while Blood Meridian is a brutal Western set in the 1800s. With both of these, it's not as much about plot as it is about the poetry of the writing.
I haven't read a scifi book in a minute, but I haven't seen a lot of people recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's three separate-but-connected short post-apocalyptic stories that follow the gradual resurgence of humans after a nuclear event. It's really subtle in that it doesn't slam you with like a whole universe and systems like Dune, but it's expertly written and hits some pretty thought provoking topics. Def underrated.
Those last 2 paragraphs sound right up my alley, thank you very much!
LotR is of course, incredible, and anything Terry Pratchett touches is gold