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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]People's capacity to read books has absolutely declined. There's no question about it. A 400 page novel used to be easy reading for any reasonably intelligent adult. But these days if you pop into a bookstore everything seems to be novellas if we can call it that. But now we as a society struggle with anything longer than a short magazine article.

I must admit I was once a voracious reader and now in my 40s I barely read a full book in a year. I'm embarrassed by it. [b]But I also notice that when I go into a bookstore to browse the new books, the quality of current fiction seems to have also declined.[/b] And the stories themselves? It's either best selling authors from 25 years ago tiredly churning out another version of the same book, or the new young writers all writing the same story, just changing the skin colors or ethnicity, but it's effectively still the same woke story. It's rare for a new book to truly grab me. 
[/quote]

THIS!
However, this is the new level of "serious reading" and is what people who read today actually are willing to read. 
It isn't just about social media's effect. It's the whole over-stimulation and inability of people to be bored, slow down, or focus on something more than a minute and a half. Public education isn't helping - actually, I think it's contributing. Our high schools aren't making students read many novels. Non-advanced levels of English aren't making students ready ANY full novels, watch youtube videos rather than reading a full print article about something, and don't even bother reading Shakespeare -- just modern English summaries of it.[/quote]

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