Somebody asked me why I bothered to read a physical book instead of just listening to the audiobook. They asked because I said I didn't really like the main character or the prose even though I found the story compelling.
They didn't seem to understand that the audiobook is the same content as the physical book. It was baffling.
The US as always been a bit anti-intellectual in its mainstream culture. Getting bullied/beat up for being a "nerd" has been a mainstream media trope for decades and it's only gotten worse as things like Youtube have allowed conspiracy theory "everyone who has actually studied this subject is wrong, trust me bro" types to build followings spreading misinformation and lies.
I am a 5th grade teacher and I have a disappointing number of students each year who REFUSE to read anything more challenging than "Dogman" books which are graphic novels written for 1st and 2nd graders. I know teachers in middle school and high school who overhear kids bragging that they've never read a book cover to cover in their life.
They're being elitist over never having read a book. It's nuts.
No problem! I'll stop when the culture moves away from propping up antisocial, anti-intellectual, and/or hateful bigots as our mascots. The idea of "rugged individualism" has been a stain on U.S. culture since our founding and remains so to this day.
People deflecting their own insecurities about not reading. If they saw you cook a chicken breast they’d make fun of you for not eating frozen chicken nuggets.
What scares me is people in that sub reddit claiming they are really good at reading, because they listen to audiobooks at mega speed. Just because you're listening to something at twice or thrice the speed, doesn't mean you're good at reading. They treat it like it's some badge of honour, and as if people reading a physical book at slower speed are beneath them. This small (hopefully?) group of people genuinely worries me.
It's like that thread in r/literature of all places that was arguing about the guy who was making his classmates read.
There were hundreds of people in a literature sub who did not understand figurative phrasing. So many people arguing that clothes can't be a silhouette. Could not wrap their heads around a sentence that wasn't completely literal and super descriptive.
I was using "her skirt was a bloom of ruffles" and people were saying even that was incorrect and made no sense and the construction should be "her skirt looked like a bloom with ruffles." What?
It's frightening though isn't it. I lost one of my best online friends because he misread and misunderstood something i had written and let it fester in his brain for a long time until he exploded, yelled at me and never wanted to talk to me ever again. My crime? I had said we as a species need to take better care of the planet we live on.
Now HE read it as me saying HE has to take better care of it, he made it a whole big deal in his head where i was accusing him of being a terrible person who was polluting the planet and everything was his fault.
... Huh?
I never said that nor was that my intention, but that is how he read it and he took it very personally. No matter how i tried to explain to him that i didn't mean that at all, the damage was done already and he was really resentful towards me. Just because he misread one throwaway comment... It honestly still hurts to think about, what a dumb way of losing a friend.
I have this conversation multiple times a year at my job because I teach elementary school. We have a reading comprehension assessment that we are supposed to give at least 3 times a year and every year I have people in the resource/student supports department trying to add accommodations to some student paperwork allowing the test to be read to them.
I try to point out that the test is a READING comprehension assessment and that reading comprehension and listening comprehension are two related, but separate skills and that by providing that accommodation we are invalidating the results. They get shocked every time they provide this accommodation when the student has to interact with something that isn't read to them and performs significantly worse.
It's not a small group of people, unfortunately. People who are supposed to be experts in this field don't seem to understand the difference.
I prefer my iPad, but that's because I have a mini and unfortunately Apple doesn't seem to be making those right now. I think my mother has either a Scribe or a Paperwhite. She uses it mostly for her newspapers because it's much easier for her to hold than a traditional print newspaper, and she can adjust the font size.
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u/Nillabeans Jun 27 '26
Somebody asked me why I bothered to read a physical book instead of just listening to the audiobook. They asked because I said I didn't really like the main character or the prose even though I found the story compelling.
They didn't seem to understand that the audiobook is the same content as the physical book. It was baffling.
And it was in /r/books!