[HN Gopher] Reading Got Farm Women Through the Depression
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Reading Got Farm Women Through the Depression
Author : samclemens
Score : 41 points
Date : 2020-05-14 16:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (daily.jstor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (daily.jstor.org)
| philtable wrote:
| TikTok will get them through this one.
| ridhwaan wrote:
| Our culture is moving or has already moved away from a reading
| culture. Instead of spending free time reading, people watch
| Netflix, Youtube, TikTok etc. I think that has huge consequences
| on human behavior. Where as once people would read the newspaper
| and be able to think about what is happening in the world, people
| today scroll through their feed where in one instant they are
| reading an article about war crimes in South America committed by
| the U.S. and in the next instant what Kylie Jenner wore to the
| MET gala.
| quotz wrote:
| I would like to mention Paul Graham's essay Acceleration of
| Addictiveness http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
| hckr_news wrote:
| Slight tangent but somewhat related. The amount of damage
| mobile phones and the tech industry have done on the human
| mind has been extremely understated. These hits of dopamine
| aren't free. There's a massive cost. Loss of privacy aside,
| the next battle has to be addressing the addiction of these
| platforms/devices and what it means for humans going forward.
| eberkund wrote:
| Here is a source:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-dec...
|
| It seems like OP is accurate in their assessment, it's
| surprising to see how many people read ZERO books in the
| preceding year.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I've probably read zero books in the preceding year.
|
| But I have the internet and I can access rich content at my
| fingertips on topics I care to educate myself on in a way
| that wasn't possible when I was a child. I use this to do
| things like say to my 32 year old son "I'm having X health
| issue. I recall reading something about (y health topic).
| Please see if x and y are related and if there is something I
| can do about it."
|
| An hour later, I have an email full of supporting links
| showing me that research shows there is a connection, these
| are the nutrients related to that problem and here is a list
| of foods with those nutrients. This has resulted at times in
| answer like "The answer to your problem is you need to eat a
| Reese's Cup." I eat a Reese's Cup and my agonizing,
| incapacitating pain drops dramatically to bearable levels.
|
| The old way isn't necessarily superior. I used to read a lot
| of books when my mother would take my older sister and I to
| the library so my sister could spend hours doing research for
| her high school papers. I would lay on the floor in the
| children's room and read Dr. Seuss or whatever.
|
| I can now access more high quality information on the
| internet via my cheap smart phone than probably any library
| has ever physically contained. And I spend large parts of my
| time reading on the internet and then I write to collate the
| information and keep track of the parts that matter to me.
|
| I am always baffled by people acting like spending all day on
| the internet means pissing your time away shit posting on
| Facebook or Twitter and not doing anything at all
| intellectually valuable. I'm doubly baffled when I see such
| sentiments expressed on Hacker News, where a bunch of smart
| people hang out to discuss mostly written articles (audio and
| video tend to do poorly here) and many people here read the
| comment first because of the calibre of thought the audience
| provides.
| User23 wrote:
| And how's not reading books working out for you?
|
| Most information on the Internet is observably crap. The
| thing about books, especially books that have managed to
| remain in print for a long time, is that they contain
| considerably less crap than a well curated set of websites.
|
| The old way is in fact superior because it is Lindy.
| the_af wrote:
| What about reading Dr. Seuss (or similar books), where the
| goal is not to access rich content or solve a problem?
| Where there is no goal other than to enjoy a book?
|
| I agree with you there's all sorts of useful and
| interesting internet content that's not reading crap on
| facebook. There's even _literary discourse_ on the
| internet!
|
| But what about books? Reading actual books is different.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I've read lots of books in my life. There's nothing wrong
| with reading books if that's something you wish to do.
|
| But not reading books doesn't mean you don't have an
| intellectual life and spending your entire day futzing
| around on the internet does not mean your brain is
| clearly and unarguably going to rot.
|
| That's all I'm trying to say.
| michrassena wrote:
| I sometimes am bothered with how reading, or reading
| books in particular is used as a proxy for that
| intellectual life. A significant proportion of anything
| ever published is absolute drivel and is no better than
| whatever proxy we wish to compare with reading, like
| reality television.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| While I agree with you (that a lot of books are no better
| than the internet content and TV shows we decry so often
| as unintellectual), the other side of the coin is that
| one person's drivel is another person's necessary
| information. A lot of entertainment addresses deep topics
| as "humor" that are too uncomfortable to talk about via
| other pathways.
|
| When I was a child, I read a lot of comics. I also was
| one of the top students at school.
|
| The mother of a same-age friend didn't want him reading
| comics because it was _drivel_. She wanted him to be one
| of the smart kids and wanted him reading _important_
| stuff.
|
| My mother told her one day "What do you care if he reads
| comics? He's at least _reading_ if he 's reading comics."
|
| I don't know if that helped my friend. I don't know if
| his mother changed her policy. But it sure as hell stuck
| with me all these years and it's been probably 47 years
| ago or something like that.
|
| If I'm one of the smart kids, you can credit my mother's
| policy of letting me read drivel because it was at least
| reading.
| hckr_news wrote:
| > I eat a Reese's Cup and my agonizing, incapacitating pain
| drops dramatically to bearable levels.
|
| That's strange. Pain from low blood sugar?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It was a pituitary thing. Peanuts are high in all the
| nutrients your pituitary needs, iirc.
| DennisP wrote:
| Your source also argues that the trend is probably turning
| around.
| aplummer wrote:
| I don't have a source on hand, however I read now because of
| chat culture people actually read and write a lot more. Back
| then verbal communication was so much more commonplace.
|
| Sure it's not novels etc, mostly comments are chit chat, but
| still words.
| roosterdawn wrote:
| > people today scroll through their feed where in one instant
| they are reading an article about war crimes in South America
| committed by the U.S. and in the next instant what Kylie Jenner
| wore to the MET gala
|
| Doesn't this completely invalidate your argument? If it's that
| much easier for folks to read an article about war crimes in
| South America committed by the US and the next about Kylie
| Jenner at a gala, how is that different from reading one
| section of a newspaper and then a different section?
| hckr_news wrote:
| I think the point he's trying to make is people are reading,
| but reading blurbs and tweets, rather than long form content
| like a book or an essay piece. Similar to eating fast food as
| it's readily available, accessible, quick instead of choosing
| a more wholesome meal with good benefits.
| kgwgk wrote:
| In that case, he could have said "a book" rather than "the
| newspaper".
| pathseeker wrote:
| Nope, people have been reading shit for decades before the
| Internet. Go to your local grocery store and look at the
| magazines on the racks near checkout.
| stagger87 wrote:
| Do you have any data to back up your first sentence, or is this
| your personal opinion? People have been claiming this for
| decades, but I'm not familiar with the sources on this. It
| looks like other people here would be interested too. Also, are
| you defining "reading culture" as leisure reading? Or something
| else?
| [deleted]
| dean177 wrote:
| "The new thing is bad, people should do more of the old thing".
| If people couldn't watch Netflix they certainly wouldn't be
| using that time to think about important issues.
|
| The world has not moved away from a reading culture, it never
| had one.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I disagree. And sure, the new thing comes along and isn't
| really all that new or bad until it actually is. Sometimes a
| new thing really is bad. Sounds like a fallacy to think that
| since every past advance was a good thing that every future
| advance must also be a good thing. You don't think digital
| media has caused a huge and rapid shift in the way humans
| entertain themselves and communicate?
|
| I'm not sure if it's for better or for worse but this is
| vastly different than anything humans have dealt with for all
| of history.
| derrick_jensen wrote:
| Podcasts are getting pretty popular as well. I think just in
| terms of sheer available time to listen versus watching videos,
| podcasts could gain a sizeable market share.
| code_duck wrote:
| How is this different than the past two or three generations
| and television?
|
| Personally, I grew up reading any sort of book and then
| switched to nonfiction and magazine articles. My habits haven't
| changed considerably with the internet. I may be an outlier but
| I don't enjoy video in general and don't watch it on TV or
| online.
|
| My experience with recent children is that they read books,
| watch video on TV and online, play physically and with toys,
| and also play video games. That's almost exactly what my life
| was like growing up in the '80s.
| nbardy wrote:
| It depends on what you're watching. I read a lot less than I
| used to, but that's because I prefer to watch long form
| discussion in the form of podcast. In my eyes it's often
| disseminating the same information of the authors book, but in
| a form of spoken word and conversation that is much more
| natural for a human to digest.
| golf3 wrote:
| Americans were always voracious readers before television, has
| nothing to do with women or the Great Depression.
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(page generated 2020-05-15 23:00 UTC)