Or rather, how so many people seem fear and avoid it, or can’t do it. Something like 21% of adults in the US are illiterate, and the majority – 54% – read at or below a 6th grade level.
I’ve been a sight reader probably since I was about six years old. I absolutely cannot look at any words legibly written in my native language and not understand them. You couldn’t force me to look at words written in English and not digest them if you held a gun to my head. I fear no wall of text, no matter how tall it is.
It takes some effort to wrap your head around the notion that not only can most people not do this, but statistically speaking most or at least a plurality of people have to struggle or exert conscious effort to read and many of them are loathe to do so. And roughly one in five people simply can’t. This did not sink in for me when I was younger.
I can’t imagine having to live my life that way. You nerds have seen how much bullshit I write in a day; I’d go absolutely bats.
As someone with ADHD I see both sides here. I will devour a good book in no time. But put something i don’t enjoy in front of me and I’d rather die than read it.
As a kid I kept asking librarians why libraries were so empty of people if they had so many books and it took me years to understand the sadness in her shrug.
I was thinking that I can’t imagine not immediately comprehending written words. Then I realized that I already do that in German. It takes a bit of effort. It’s really surprising that so many people live their lives like that with their native language.
I honestly don’t know how it can be possible, especially these days with everything done on phones and the internet. It does help me to understand the appeal of Tiktok, Instagram, YouTube, etc though.
I’ve been using a book tracker app since the iPhone 4s (2011) just to keep track of what I buy - I don’t track anything else - because even way back then I had trouble remembering if I had a book or if I had just browsed it elsewhere.
In 2018, various functions (search, sort, stats, etc.) took a permanent dirt nap just as I was nearing the 3K number of entries. And these are just the books I own.
The size of the DB backup file has nearly doubled since then.
Now granted, a number of books I get need to go straight into storage before I can even read them, as I have not yet built my library. It’s already gone through several redesigns to stay ahead of the size of my collection, and right now I’m looking at movable library storage stacks - the kind that roll on miniature railway tracks and have wheel-like dogs at their ends that a person turns to easily move them back and forth (opening and closing an access corridor between the stacks for access to the books). I’m hoping to eventually have almost half a linear kilometre of shelving in my library once it’s built.
I cannot imagine the horror of being even semi-illiterate, much less fully illiterate. I absolutely love reading.
That sounds completely awesome and seems like a fulfilling goal to have in life! Please make sure though to set up some type of arrangement for if something happens to you with such a large and incredible collection like that. I’ve been involved with estate sales and have seen personal loved ones just completely overwhelmed with the amount of things to process after a relative’s death. Getting rid of things just isn’t on the table sometimes, things will sit and rot because of love and loss.
That 3k+ of books could completely transform a public library and continue to touch the minds of generations to come if you set it up properly now (and won’t be a future burden on a loved one).
As someone with deep roots in the sciences, and good access to the latest data and evidence surrounding anthropogenic climate change, I seriously doubt that there will be much civilization left by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil. All indications used to point towards widespread economic, societal, and ecological collapse in the latter half of this century, well past my effective lifespan, but recent (and strong!) evidence has moved that up considerably to not much past 2035. So no, I am not worried in the least about “burdening” anyone with my collection. I seriously doubt that there will be anyone left who will care. The few who remain will be too obsessed with surviving another day to give two shits about books. I just want to live long enough to read most of them in relative comfort.
picture books? not long texts that requires abstract thinking, like non-fiction, most definitely not HISTORY books, chemsitry, or math. a well written book is usually pretty dense, and a crappy one like some “cladestines operations” type novels are usually like a childs book.,
It takes some effort to wrap your head around the notion that not only can most people not do this, but statistically speaking most or at least a plurality of people have to struggle or exert conscious effort to read and many of them are loathe to do so. And roughly one in five people simply can’t. This did not sink in for me when I was younger.
what do you mean people look at words and don’t process them automatically? Is there like, research on this i can read or something? I don’t think i believe you.
I though people were just stupid, and chose not to.
Try reading sentences in a different language. You might be able to understand it but unless you are advanced it takes that extra focus to comprehend what you are seeing.
sentences in foreign languages are complete gibberish to me, unless i partly know how the grammar structure and language works, but that’s also sort of automatic at that point, if i wanted to actually comprehend it, yeah i would have to put work into it, but that’s literally me translating the sentence at that point lol.
I think that’s kind of what those people are doing, translating the written words into verbal speech by sounding it out instead of immediately reading it.
I’m skeptical too if there are really over 50% at that level or worse but then again it would explain a lot going on in the US.
i mean obviously, but unless you aren’t teaching kids how to read/write in school, the amount of complete ignorance you would need to expend in your adult life to backslide so far on something so ingrained into your brain structure is genuinely impressive.
Reading.
Or rather, how so many people seem fear and avoid it, or can’t do it. Something like 21% of adults in the US are illiterate, and the majority – 54% – read at or below a 6th grade level.
I’ve been a sight reader probably since I was about six years old. I absolutely cannot look at any words legibly written in my native language and not understand them. You couldn’t force me to look at words written in English and not digest them if you held a gun to my head. I fear no wall of text, no matter how tall it is.
It takes some effort to wrap your head around the notion that not only can most people not do this, but statistically speaking most or at least a plurality of people have to struggle or exert conscious effort to read and many of them are loathe to do so. And roughly one in five people simply can’t. This did not sink in for me when I was younger.
I can’t imagine having to live my life that way. You nerds have seen how much bullshit I write in a day; I’d go absolutely bats.
As someone with ADHD I see both sides here. I will devour a good book in no time. But put something i don’t enjoy in front of me and I’d rather die than read it.
As a kid I kept asking librarians why libraries were so empty of people if they had so many books and it took me years to understand the sadness in her shrug.
I was thinking that I can’t imagine not immediately comprehending written words. Then I realized that I already do that in German. It takes a bit of effort. It’s really surprising that so many people live their lives like that with their native language.
I honestly don’t know how it can be possible, especially these days with everything done on phones and the internet. It does help me to understand the appeal of Tiktok, Instagram, YouTube, etc though.
That stat is wild, reading is such a foundational skill in today’s world.
My goodness, I am so much like you.
I’ve been using a book tracker app since the iPhone 4s (2011) just to keep track of what I buy - I don’t track anything else - because even way back then I had trouble remembering if I had a book or if I had just browsed it elsewhere.
In 2018, various functions (search, sort, stats, etc.) took a permanent dirt nap just as I was nearing the 3K number of entries. And these are just the books I own.
The size of the DB backup file has nearly doubled since then.
Now granted, a number of books I get need to go straight into storage before I can even read them, as I have not yet built my library. It’s already gone through several redesigns to stay ahead of the size of my collection, and right now I’m looking at movable library storage stacks - the kind that roll on miniature railway tracks and have wheel-like dogs at their ends that a person turns to easily move them back and forth (opening and closing an access corridor between the stacks for access to the books). I’m hoping to eventually have almost half a linear kilometre of shelving in my library once it’s built.
I cannot imagine the horror of being even semi-illiterate, much less fully illiterate. I absolutely love reading.
That sounds completely awesome and seems like a fulfilling goal to have in life! Please make sure though to set up some type of arrangement for if something happens to you with such a large and incredible collection like that. I’ve been involved with estate sales and have seen personal loved ones just completely overwhelmed with the amount of things to process after a relative’s death. Getting rid of things just isn’t on the table sometimes, things will sit and rot because of love and loss.
That 3k+ of books could completely transform a public library and continue to touch the minds of generations to come if you set it up properly now (and won’t be a future burden on a loved one).
As someone with deep roots in the sciences, and good access to the latest data and evidence surrounding anthropogenic climate change, I seriously doubt that there will be much civilization left by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil. All indications used to point towards widespread economic, societal, and ecological collapse in the latter half of this century, well past my effective lifespan, but recent (and strong!) evidence has moved that up considerably to not much past 2035. So no, I am not worried in the least about “burdening” anyone with my collection. I seriously doubt that there will be anyone left who will care. The few who remain will be too obsessed with surviving another day to give two shits about books. I just want to live long enough to read most of them in relative comfort.
I don’t even know what reading bellow 6th grade means.
picture books? not long texts that requires abstract thinking, like non-fiction, most definitely not HISTORY books, chemsitry, or math. a well written book is usually pretty dense, and a crappy one like some “cladestines operations” type novels are usually like a childs book.,
what do you mean people look at words and don’t process them automatically? Is there like, research on this i can read or something? I don’t think i believe you.
I though people were just stupid, and chose not to.
Try reading sentences in a different language. You might be able to understand it but unless you are advanced it takes that extra focus to comprehend what you are seeing.
sentences in foreign languages are complete gibberish to me, unless i partly know how the grammar structure and language works, but that’s also sort of automatic at that point, if i wanted to actually comprehend it, yeah i would have to put work into it, but that’s literally me translating the sentence at that point lol.
I think that’s kind of what those people are doing, translating the written words into verbal speech by sounding it out instead of immediately reading it.
I’m skeptical too if there are really over 50% at that level or worse but then again it would explain a lot going on in the US.
that sounds wacky as fuck.
Guess i’ll have to do some looking to see about how we’re determining illiteracy these days.
Literacy is a skill that needs to be taught. If it isn’t taught, or is taught poorly, well…
i mean obviously, but unless you aren’t teaching kids how to read/write in school, the amount of complete ignorance you would need to expend in your adult life to backslide so far on something so ingrained into your brain structure is genuinely impressive.