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).I've also read Nick Carr's "The Shallows"[2] and other authors about about the web's effect on attention span, distractions, etc.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.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.)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.Books certainly have benefits but I think they are overstated in relation to non-book forms of consuming words.[1]http://www.artgarfunkel.com/library/list1.html[2]http://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp...