I switched up the faces hehe :)
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You should read the meme template
have you seen a bell curve before?
That’s…not, how that meme works.
You’d know that, if you read books.I wanted to make it in chronological order. You’d know that if you read books.
and what do you think the blue bell shape represents?
This is a new interpretation of the meme, you would know that if you read books
Oh god, why English is so weird, I always read “read” as “read” and it fucks me up!
Screens coupled with ADHD ruined my attention span. Being a software engineer doesn’t help either. I’m basically inundated by screens all day long and wish I could truly disconnect. What ends up happening is that I fill the space with gaming.
I still read but finding the time and headspace to do it has become near impossible. I need to be left in a cabin in the mountains with no screens and no agenda in order for any substantial reading to occur.
Not a “kids nowdays” problem, more like a “nowdays” problem. I used to read about 4 books a month (the library would let me take up to 4 books home for up to a month tops) and I still love some books but I can not, for my mother’s life, sit the fucking down to do so. I’m pooping right now and I’m in the fucking phone. Our attention span is really taking a toll thanks to phones. Oh FYI the only “social media” I use is lemmy. I don’t even have an instagram/tiktok account
Youre acting like using social media is “not your fault”. Kids nowadays KNOW theyre adiccted to social media, they KNOW thats why they cant concentrate, but they act like they cant do anything about it.
Kids need vices when we force excessive stressors on them
Same as adults
Our society is setup to keep everyone burnt out and irritatable, and it would be a lot worse without our vices.
We can fix this whenever we feel like removing unnecessary stressors from people’s lives
When people regularly get excess leisure time they will choose to read books, instead of the quick hits of dopamine they get from social media that take way less time and energy commitment than a book.
Echoing the audiobook suggestion. Much like you, I struggle to sit down and read, but if it’s an audiobook I can do other stuff while I “read”.
Having tried audio books, how do you pay attention? The second something catches my attention (or more likely I start reading something else) I completely zone out. Makes listening to anything important extremely tedious as ill likely rewind numerous times if not give up.
I only use audio books for pleasure reading, so I don’t know if that counts as ‘anything important’. As for focusing on the actual book, I’ve got decent dual focus, but I tend to aggressively pause my books when distracted to minimize that, and the app has an auto-rewind feature so it can roll back a bit (I have 30s) after a pause to cover anything you may have missed. Listening to a book or a podcast while driving/doing chores/anything that doesn’t require much brain power is pretty normal for me.
Tried audiobooks?
I don’t read because school conditioned me to consider reading a tiresome chore =(
That, and the dyslexia
Gonna have to update this as books with AI slop become more common.
Mediums of information delivery change with time. Just because someone doesn’t read much doesn’t mean that they are idiots.
I will start reading books any day now.
I stopped reading books when Pratchett died. I don’t even know if there’s a correlation, but his books were by far the majority I read. It feels like I don’t have time to read, but the thing is: If I really wanted to, I would probably make time for it.
I listen to books, audio books are nice
What parents force kids to read is boring, lots of books out there that are fun, and even more so if you include comics
I lost my love of reading thanks to idiotic school mandates. I read so many books in jr high, in high school we had a homeroom at the end of the day that you weren’t allowed to do homework in, we were literally forced to read for 30 minutes. School admins thought this would ignite love for reading, instead it killed all of my joy for it. Nothing like sitting next to a sunny window thinking about how in just 23 more minutes you can go outside when you’re being forced to read right there.
Then detention too, if you got detention you weren’t allowed to do homework - because reasons I suppose. (Doing poorly in school? Getting detention? Well good luck, you can’t do homework here sucker!) So of course, more forced reading time. How did no one think that we would associate reading == punishment?
So now I find it incredibly difficult to read, and I hate it. All I think about is all of the other things I could be doing.
No homework in detention sounds absolutely fucked.
There were a couple times in high school I actually asked to go to detention after class, just to do homework. Because I knew it was a quiet, distraction-free space where I could concentrate on a time-sensitive task. Baffled the detention supervisor, she probably wondered if I was having a bad situation at home I was trying to avoid, but no, just wanted to protect myself from myself. And it was very effective every time.
It was the opposite for me. I got into books because of a recommended list my school sent us for summer vacation. Best thing that ever happened to me.
Do you enjoy audiobooks? You can listen to pretty much anything and go for a hike.
I got pretty big into them a while back when I had an hour commute before podcasts were a big thing.
I’d like to listen to audiobooks but it’s hard for me to focus on them when I’m doing other stuff, especially outside/commute because of anxiety.
I do, the one positive about commuting is that I can listen to books. It’s the physical act of reading now that’s destroyed for me. I love books, being in bookstores, but sitting down to read feels like wasted time. On the commute it’s hard for me to read and be in a moving vehicle, so audiobooks are great
Replace “parents” with “schools” and that statement is correct.
The schools want the students to get the deeper meaning of all sorts of classics. They don’t slow down long enough to actually get any enjoyment out of it.
Get your kid a smartphone, then there’s no need for a library pass.
iPad generation
Haha phone bad old person meme
Reading has been a massive improvement in my life, buying an eReader helped that along. From fiction to Marxist theory to history books, having an eReader helped me avoid issues with ADHD, I would struggle to open a book and stay focused but being able to pick up and put down an eReader at any time and read for a few minutes without having to carry a full book around was massive.
