I have noticed in the past 10 years online content has become very click-baited and regurgitated. Sites are designed to steal your attention with information coming as a secondary concern.
Books, for the most part, avoid these issues. On average they are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books!
With that said, I also think people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence. Don't worry about that shit, worry about finding high-quality content that's worth reading.
> On average [books] are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books!
Along the same lines, the time and mental investment required to read a book, for me, produces a unique kind of immersive return. For example, I’m currently reading John Dos Passos’ USA trilogy. It is 1000+ pages of fiction about 1900-1930 America, and it takes time. But that time has given me a rich picture of what the period was like, written by a guy who lived it. Both because I’m spending time and actively thinking while reading. It’s hard for me to get the same thing from shorter-form or visual media.
> With that said, I also think people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence. Don't worry about that shit, worry about finding high-quality content that's worth reading.
Particular around new year/year in review time, I see many people online talking about reading x books per year. But reading books is not like running miles. It’s definitely about quality over quantity.
To take the example a little further, most people probably wouldn’t brag about seeing 1000 paintings this year.
If you love to read many books then more power to you. There are certainly several people I respect that read hundreds of books annually. But for me, I think a couple of quality books per month is already a ton of good input, and I hope people don’t get caught up in “# books read” as another metric to simply pump up.
> But for me, I think a couple of quality books per month is already a ton of good input, and I hope people don’t get caught up in “# books read” as another metric to simply pump up.
Schopenhauer puts it well:
"As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself."
> people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence
Good shout, reading isn't a competition! For me at least, it is firstly a hobby, and secondly an opportunity to build upon the ideas of those who came before you.
Because books tend to explore a topic to a high degree of depth, they cover a lot of ideas including things you might have thought about yourself. I've always found new perspectives on ideas I had before to be very refreshing.
I think books, in general, are too long. The points the author tries to make takes too many words. I think most books probably can communicate their core message in about half the number of pages. Too much fluff.
Whether or not we agree on what constitutes "fluff," I don't really disagree. A lot of fiction would be better if it were tighter and a lot of non-fiction, especially business etc. books, do have padding.
A lot of it is publishing economics. For non-fiction, most mainstream publishers are looking for 250+ pages. And that often means adding more examples, more background, more...
There can definitely be a sweet spot between a magazine article and a typical published book. But that's hard to get published through mainstream channels which still have both real (and perceived) value relative to doing it independently.
When I did a book about a year ago, I was certainly aware of hitting page counts. I don't think of it as having a lot of fluff but it's not as short as it could have been either.
I’ve also noticed that even books are much more click-baity and regurgitated now, seeing the high influx of self-help books, dodgy entrepreneurship books, and “here’s your watered down philosophy/humanities books so you have things to talk about in dinners with other people”. In overall it’s becoming harder and harder to find good books in bookstores.
My take on this is: although books have inherent advantages compared to other mediums, most of them (that you can easily find) are pretty bad, just like the Internet. You’ve got to do your own adventure finding the rare and good stuff that people usually don’t talk about.
Books, for the most part, avoid these issues. On average they are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books!
With that said, I also think people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence. Don't worry about that shit, worry about finding high-quality content that's worth reading.