/lit/ - Literature

Yes

>>17622846
Yes. Book-reading has dropped steadily each decade since the 1950s. Though remember that much of what people were reading was the mid-20th century equivalent of the Da Vinci Code.

>>17622846
I doubt the average person was well read or even read much at all prior to the invention of television. I imagine normies just did the same normie shit that they still do today, mainly eating, socialising and having sex. TV probably contributed, but I doubt it was the instigator.

>>17622870
>>17622977

Both true. I will add that the average middle to lower class person read for entertainment in the same way you watch TV for entertainment, to zone out after working.

I think free internet porn had a lot to do with it too.
Guys like Philip Roth, John Updike, Norman Mailer used to make millions per book and they used to have a bunch of fap-worthy scenes in their books. Free internet porn has taken away a lot of the read to fap audience.

>>17622846
TV killed a lot of print media. But it was largely stuff like pulp magazine action stories and comics that lost market share. If anything people are more literate and reading more than ever, but a good chunk of that is digital reading now. The written word that TV replaced was probably not worth saving since it served the same role as schlocky TV fills.

>>17623234
>people are reading more than ever

Prove it

Comic books had already replaced pulp fiction by the time TV became popular.

Read diaries from a century or so ago (except the war years) and you'll see that if you didn't like socializing and didn't have some weird specific interest then reading was one of the only ways to kill time in a relaxing manner. There were also far less books competing at one time so the opportunity for discussion was there more often.

It's also common to just ignore the fact that the poors and the illiterates also existed back then

>>17622846
Yes, because most people read for entertainment and TV/vidya/anime whatever are better (more accurately, more immediate) mediums of entertainment.

>>17622846
Reading never helped me one way or the other or changed my behavior in any significant way, so when my reading transitioned from books to the internet, nothing substantial changed with it.

>>17622846
Other forms of entertainment have become more popular, resulting in people reading less.

>>17623234
Pulpy schlock is fun though

>>17623234
>>17623326
>The taste for novel-reading is like that for liquor or opium. It is never satiated. It grows with gratification.
>A confirmed novel-reader is almost as difficult to reform as a confirmed inebriate or opium-eater. The influence upon the mind is most damaging and pernicious.
>It not only destroys the love for solid, useful reading, but excites the emotions, and in many cases keeps the passions in a perfect fever of excitement.
It's a good thing people are reading less novels. The problem is the novel being replaced by the radio/television/computer program.

>>17622846

>>17622846
>>17622870
>>17622977
50's people would read pocket editions behind store counters just the way people today use their phones. Just as the Internet has a lot of information but people prefer to stand in (((facebook))) zone, books have a lot of things to teach but people prefer to stand in (((Twilight Saga))) zone.

>>17622846
it was actually cinema, television being an improvement thereof

>>17622846
>our culture becoming less well-read?

People read more now than they ever have.

>>17625481
>less well-read
>read more
Thanks for proving his point lmao

>>17622846
If it wasn't TV it'd be something else. Few people have any interest in literature, philosophy or anything you'd consider substantial reading. The amount of people who would have their nose buried in Deleuze if not for tv/phones/vidya/etc is probably negligible.

It might be a contributing cause or an accelerator, but the primary cause is the death of education over the last 100 years or so. I went into high school a voracious reader of ya lit, and came out reading about a novel per year, or less. Everything they do is feared towards sucking all the meaning out of everything, thus making it boring. This crushes everyone's interest, tanking their performance,causing standards to be lowered, making everything even more boring. I remembet being in AP english and drawing pictures of scenes from Heart of Darkness. We would sometimes get typed-out lectures handed out to us with individual words missing, that we had to fill in. My history teacher let us take tests with the book open on the desk, and if we couldn't find the answers, we could shout them out and he would answer them for us.

People don't read seriously because they have no sense of how or why they should.

>>17625584
>sucking all the meaning out of everything, thus making it boring

Isn't it closer to the truth that you engaged in mindless garbage that didn't require much thought ("ya lit") and now that you realize reading requires a bit more brainpower than that, you have given up?

>>17625607
Why not both? School is great at making people dislike reading due to the way it's taught

>>17625607
No, I majored in philosophy because I was looking for exactly that sort of challenge. I thought that was serious and meaningful, and literature was dull, pretentious and fuzzy. I've just been reading a lit lately, and feeling sad about my wasted education. I'm 28, and I just discovered poetry, and that it's worthwhile, a month ago. That shouldn't happen.