Readership issues in countries like the USA started way before mass adoption of AI, so also it's not related to AI effects.
Honestly, this sounds like a shitpost and I'd remove the line if I was the author.
That aside, I really don't understand the glorification of reading. I love reading (also I'm Spanish) and I do it every day, but reading can also just mean reading romance novels and living in a parallel unrealistic world, and that doesn't make you or "democracy" better than a non-reader that may be a movie watcher addict.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187892931...
If you include a screen I've read everyday for the past 25+ years
(since I think probably people are reading these days more than ever - it just may be on forums like HN, social media, and AI output, etc.)
so if you just define that specifically then we could just promote it on social media, people reading these specific things, and then "boom" more people are "really reading"
(I presume people want to see more people reading "Great Books of Classic Literature" which is probably a great goal, things like Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" or Dante's "The Divine Comedy", etc.)
I've thought about this. I agree with you not all reading is equal, and reading social posts (including HN) is the equivalent of junk food, but there's something about reading that sets it apart. I think it's like exercising. Reading engages parts of the mind not exercised otherwise, it requires a more active imagination, it often involves "adult" mechanisms like delayed gratification that are less present in other forms of communication. It's more active and less frictionless than many internet activities, watching TV, etc. That's why it's sometimes a struggle to find a moment to read, and why young people often don't do it: it requires more effort than competing activities (this struggle also applies to physical activity, of course!). And this effort does something positive to your brain, I think. I'd say given two forms of trash entertainment, one trashy literature, and the other a trashy TV show, the former is better for you than the latter.
jruohonen•26m ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48830868