I like reading. I can specifically remember learning to read. I did it because my friend showed me he could read, at which point I _had_ to figure reading out, myself.
However, despite enjoying reading, I am quick to — as the saying goes: “know when to hold em, and know when to fold em.” Nowadays, we are simply awash in text, and following chat bots like ChatGPT and …the other popular chat bots, the problem has been magnified. And so, you really gotta learn how to “fold em” quickly, so as to not waste time exposing yourself to garbage.
Five years ago, the prevailing rule of thumb was that reading was inherently good, because it would expose you to thoughts written down by other people, leading you to see things differently. Nowadays, vast amounts of words are written, not by a person sharing independent thoughts, but by a computer outputting the next token statistically related to the current token. I hope I don’t need to explain that’s not creativity or insight.
So, here we are, awash in cognitive garbage, and people keep making more of it — as if anybody asked for more. And so, it seems like most written things need to get much shorter. Whereas in prior eras, it was important to use artful phrases etc to both signal quality to readers and also because that was “the coin of the realm,” nowadays, we have far more words all around us, with more appearing every day. There is simply no way to read a meaningful portion of all the words in any given domain. Whereas reading books was critical in the 20th century, discernment and knowing what to avoid or when to stop reading is essential now.
That’s as a reader. As a writer, the must-have skill in the 21st century is _getting to the point_, ideally quickly and efficiently. And, to be sure, I see the value of well-written prose and poetry. I think it’s important to be a competent reader and to read different genres, formats, sources, editions, and so on. However, a lot of the stuff written doesn’t have like some arcane aspect that requires discernment of the original source. Rather, many books are _about_ something and simply need to make the point ASAP.
From what I can tell, this wasn’t apparent at the time of original publication. And so I do not begrudge the writers for not accurately envisioning their future. However, here we are now, and discernment is extremely valuable. Further, I can only imagine discernment will become more important from here. Like someone born in 1970 is “only” 55 (maybe 56) — like that person was 30 at the millennium. People born in 1970 have blogs! (Doubtlessly generating _more_ excess words.)
And so, if I have a point to emphasize, it’s that the nature of reading has changed amid the torrent of digital content. Rather than seeking an artful turn of phrase, the name of the game now is to make your point concisely and saliently.