Why can’t we read anymore?
I've read over 500 fiction books and 2000+ non-fiction.  I've read many of the big thick classics like Moby Dick, War & Peace, Infinite Jest.  I've kept a spreadsheet of all the books I've read somewhat like Art Garfunkel[1] (of Simon & Garfunkel music duo).<p>I've also read Nick Carr's "The Shallows"[2] and other authors about about the web's effect on attention span, distractions, etc.<p>With all that said, I'm not convinced that people "should" read long form books.  I read all those books because I personally enjoyed it.  I just can't say with confidence that others should do the same or they will be "missing out" on some unquantifiable intellectual nirvana.<p>I also enjoy getting lost in Wikipedia articles and jumping around hyperlinks without fully finishing the wiki article I was reading.  (Wiki articles are not ever "finished" anyway so there's no guilt trip in leaving the page to head down another rabbit hole.)<p>15 years ago, I read a dozen of C++ books cover-to-cover.  Can someone today get similar levels of knowledge jumping around quality blog posts and watching youtube videos?  I think so.  I don't hold my traditional reading method for C++ to be superior; it's simply what I did before the internet was available in 1995.  I certainly did not learn Golang by reading a book cover-to-cover.<p>Books certainly have benefits but I think they are overstated in relation to non-book forms of consuming words.<p>[1]<a href="http://www.artgarfunkel.com/library/list1.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.artgarfunkel.com/library/list1.html</a><p>[2]<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp...</a>