I was listening to a Hard Fork episode recently and the issue of us finding it harder and harder to read physical books and books in general came up as a topic of discussion. One of the speakers posited an interesting root cause. Back in the day you could talk about the book you were reading because many others were reading the same book. This was definitely true for me in school and college. You found like-minded people based on favorite authors, books and music. Since then, I cannot recall taking casually to friends or family about a book we had all read and had opinions about.
The culture shifted in degrees to other media. Now the chatter is around things seen and shared on social media - that is the space once occupied by books. So the reasoning was that we did not stop reading books because the internet or social media happened, its just that society has moved on to a different gathering place away from books. There is definitely truth to that logic and it made me feel slightly better about my own inability to read physical books. I have been able to reread books from the past in digital format - its almost like returning to a familiar town, walking through neighborhoods I once knew and loved. A brand new book does not invoke those feelings and absent a community of readers that are just all around you, there is no sense in undertaking that exploration, finding a book club and so on.
This is not accounting for the fact that the sheer number of books published has exploded and the quality has proportionally dropped. The combination of scarcity and a high quality bar kept the reader's attention back in pre-internet days. That is no longer the case. Today finding a good book is like finding a designer dress that fits you in the final sale aisle of a discount department store in a suburban strip-mall. The chances of success are slim to none.
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