Hi Hilde. I read your piece. I wish there was an answer to this. Is reading classist? What fosters early childhood reading? 4 of my 5 children read early and deeply. Now I’m not sure any of them but one (my high school drop out bless him) read for pleasure. Do they scroll social media? Yes. Do they listen to podcasts? Yes. Which consumes hours of their time. So they could make the choice to go to the library like they were raised and start reading again.
I don’t read as much as I used to (I’m 58). I listen to audio books while I do chores, or even stand at my desk and work at my paid job. I find my attention span shorter for reading paper books. And I was raised in a world before phones where we all read (even the poor farm kids) all the time.
Mostly as an old person I’m profoundly sad about what is happening. I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know if I am just another old person grieving a past to which one can never return (like all old people of every generation) or if I am grieving something more profound. I’ve wondered about the older generation who watched the introduction of Television change the culture. Or even the older generation who saw the introduction of electricity. I suspect those Esther’s of those generations also thought the sky was falling. Is that comforting to me? Not yet.
Side note. I’m not on FB and I am embarrassed to say I’m not sure I can pick out AI writing. Which scares me.
honestly, I am not always adept at picking out AI writing either, which is becoming a large reason why I avoid FB (alongside the fact that it sucks lol). LinkedIn is even worse. Reddit is also full of bots. it’s disturbing that, if we use the internet, we now don’t have any choice in whether we read AI writing.
I also have no idea what the answer is. but I feel like it starts in schools, and more specifically that it starts with school funding. I have several close friends + family members that teach, and they're limited as to how much they can even actually phone use in the classroom — most don't have the support or tools to make kids not use AI on assignments.
I think honestly, there is a profound shift happening. I don't think that the world is going to end — it's naive but I do believe in the power of the people lol — but I am pretty worried abt what the next few decades (and our brains) will look like.
It's both schools and the family, if your kids see you reading when they are at a young age then they will (likely) mimic it - because kids like to copy adult behaviour to feel grown up. If the adults they see the most are heavy readers, they will see that as a sign of maturity.
Or they won't, which is also fine. It isn't a parents job to force stuff on their kids, its to encourage their natural interests in a healthy direction.
Setting boundaries, via honest conversation with the child about their thoughts and needs as they see them - mixed with your adult perspective knowing more broadly about what is healthy and unhealthy - can help to limit the negative impacts of social media etc. The key is to do it consensually, so they don't feel the need to hide it from you. This creates space in which the child has space from addictive things and feels respected, so can express their genuine interest without fear of the parent.
It also has the benefit of raising kids who understand their boundaries in an embodied way from having been respected from early on, and the use of conversation and compromise. Whether they chose to read in that space or not.
It has the double benefit of preparing them for consent based relationships in future in their personal and wider life. The attitude we need to maintain democracy for their generation into the future!
I think being bored is a skill and losing the ability to endure boredom means it's harder to enjoy anything. Reading is a quieter, slower task that *does not have to be* boring and often is not--if people can make it past the distractions and dopamine seeking of faster activities. Overall it's definitely a cultural issue-- I hope that with enough push back people will retreat away from AI/phones in general (as I type this on my phone 🥴)
god I hope so! while I'm not at all where I want to be, for the last yr I have used it less and come to regard it as the enemy lol. a lot of my friends feel the same way. it's just really hard to detach oneself from the phone when one came of age depending on it :( but not impossible
I agree that it’s not a class issue but a cultural one. My immigrant grandmother, a mother of 5 with little formal schooling, used to check out classics in Spanish from the local library (it was a border town so we had that). She read books like Anna Karenina in Spanish for the joy of reading. She never afaik identified herself as a reader or a member of a class of people who read. She would have scoffed at literary circle-jerking because the very concept was foreign to her. But this was many decades ago (60s to 80s) with a very different cultural landscape.
I love hearing stories like this. my grandmother was kind of similar - tons of kids, didn't get to pursue joy until much later in life when she became a librarian! I wonder if even older people would be less likely to have this trajectory today, what with Fox News and Facebook
The normalization of AI writing reminds me a lot of the dystopian series “pretties”…. I think (hope) at some point we will learn to see the beauty in imperfection, in grainy personalities peeking out, even in the monotony. In some ways, it reminds me of the way that digital art forms revolutionized art. A lot of people have had access to so many materials, techniques, that painting a Da Vinci in the last few centuries wouldn’t be impressive at all. Yet we still have modern art? Because what makes something art is the feeling and soul behind it rather than the materials (or words) used, and I don’t think that’s something that machines can replicate.
I had a back and forth on here once about how reading for leisure is not accessible for everyone. I think there was a disagreement about the definition of leisure, so it was a bit pointless. But I think most people are at a point where all they want to do outside of school and work is zone out. Its even worse if you're working class because life is harder. To read, you have to be able to quiet your mind, which is what to me makes it inequitable. It's not impossible, but I think we need to start there and not pretend it's equally accessible. I mostly notice AI writing in Instagram captions and it makes me not read them, so idk. I do think if you like reading, you wouldn't want to read sanitized writing. But I think very few people make the leap from enjoying being read to to enjoying reading.
yeah, like to an extent, reading is a willpower issue. but current conditions make sustained focus on reading very fucking hard for a lot of people, and finger wagging does nothing to solve these issue—imo most of the time it’s self-aggrandizing at best. I think so often abt what my friends and family who work in schools have to go through w their students, and they get very little support from their administrations. we need to look at what is actually happening to kids in schools and online rather than gesturing towards what should be happening
I read a post earlier (was it AI??) about a woman who worked at a publishing agency saying that writers are submitting “AI grammar checked” books and that they all sound the same in certain ways. As a lover of books, especially the fantasy genre, (which is already somewhat redundant and has already had a number of AI-powered books released) I worry about my possible ignorance to it and keeping the shred of originality that exists in the fantasy (mostly romantic fantasy) world. How do ppl who aren’t creative writing majors or whose favorite author isn’t Ernest Hemingway suppose to know the difference?? How do us common folk play a part in preserving originality? Haha I had fun thinking about this :) thx
I don’t think reading is classist but people are on to something when they feel like literary fiction is becoming more and more theory-driven and is only intelligible or interesting if you have a graduate degree.
Hi Hilde. I read your piece. I wish there was an answer to this. Is reading classist? What fosters early childhood reading? 4 of my 5 children read early and deeply. Now I’m not sure any of them but one (my high school drop out bless him) read for pleasure. Do they scroll social media? Yes. Do they listen to podcasts? Yes. Which consumes hours of their time. So they could make the choice to go to the library like they were raised and start reading again.
I don’t read as much as I used to (I’m 58). I listen to audio books while I do chores, or even stand at my desk and work at my paid job. I find my attention span shorter for reading paper books. And I was raised in a world before phones where we all read (even the poor farm kids) all the time.
Mostly as an old person I’m profoundly sad about what is happening. I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know if I am just another old person grieving a past to which one can never return (like all old people of every generation) or if I am grieving something more profound. I’ve wondered about the older generation who watched the introduction of Television change the culture. Or even the older generation who saw the introduction of electricity. I suspect those Esther’s of those generations also thought the sky was falling. Is that comforting to me? Not yet.
Side note. I’m not on FB and I am embarrassed to say I’m not sure I can pick out AI writing. Which scares me.
honestly, I am not always adept at picking out AI writing either, which is becoming a large reason why I avoid FB (alongside the fact that it sucks lol). LinkedIn is even worse. Reddit is also full of bots. it’s disturbing that, if we use the internet, we now don’t have any choice in whether we read AI writing.
I also have no idea what the answer is. but I feel like it starts in schools, and more specifically that it starts with school funding. I have several close friends + family members that teach, and they're limited as to how much they can even actually phone use in the classroom — most don't have the support or tools to make kids not use AI on assignments.
I think honestly, there is a profound shift happening. I don't think that the world is going to end — it's naive but I do believe in the power of the people lol — but I am pretty worried abt what the next few decades (and our brains) will look like.
It's both schools and the family, if your kids see you reading when they are at a young age then they will (likely) mimic it - because kids like to copy adult behaviour to feel grown up. If the adults they see the most are heavy readers, they will see that as a sign of maturity.
Or they won't, which is also fine. It isn't a parents job to force stuff on their kids, its to encourage their natural interests in a healthy direction.
Setting boundaries, via honest conversation with the child about their thoughts and needs as they see them - mixed with your adult perspective knowing more broadly about what is healthy and unhealthy - can help to limit the negative impacts of social media etc. The key is to do it consensually, so they don't feel the need to hide it from you. This creates space in which the child has space from addictive things and feels respected, so can express their genuine interest without fear of the parent.
It also has the benefit of raising kids who understand their boundaries in an embodied way from having been respected from early on, and the use of conversation and compromise. Whether they chose to read in that space or not.
It has the double benefit of preparing them for consent based relationships in future in their personal and wider life. The attitude we need to maintain democracy for their generation into the future!
"I’m not on FB and I am embarrassed to say I’m not sure I can pick out AI writing. Which scares me."
Same here, on both counts. I'd better start figuring it out.
I think being bored is a skill and losing the ability to endure boredom means it's harder to enjoy anything. Reading is a quieter, slower task that *does not have to be* boring and often is not--if people can make it past the distractions and dopamine seeking of faster activities. Overall it's definitely a cultural issue-- I hope that with enough push back people will retreat away from AI/phones in general (as I type this on my phone 🥴)
god I hope so! while I'm not at all where I want to be, for the last yr I have used it less and come to regard it as the enemy lol. a lot of my friends feel the same way. it's just really hard to detach oneself from the phone when one came of age depending on it :( but not impossible
I agree that it’s not a class issue but a cultural one. My immigrant grandmother, a mother of 5 with little formal schooling, used to check out classics in Spanish from the local library (it was a border town so we had that). She read books like Anna Karenina in Spanish for the joy of reading. She never afaik identified herself as a reader or a member of a class of people who read. She would have scoffed at literary circle-jerking because the very concept was foreign to her. But this was many decades ago (60s to 80s) with a very different cultural landscape.
I love hearing stories like this. my grandmother was kind of similar - tons of kids, didn't get to pursue joy until much later in life when she became a librarian! I wonder if even older people would be less likely to have this trajectory today, what with Fox News and Facebook
AI allows me to avoid thought, which I enjoy
Did you even read this…………….
I assumed they were being sarcastic
yes hahahaha we know each other in real life
Copy 🤭
She’s lying I hate thinking
😂😂😂 I'm screaming
The normalization of AI writing reminds me a lot of the dystopian series “pretties”…. I think (hope) at some point we will learn to see the beauty in imperfection, in grainy personalities peeking out, even in the monotony. In some ways, it reminds me of the way that digital art forms revolutionized art. A lot of people have had access to so many materials, techniques, that painting a Da Vinci in the last few centuries wouldn’t be impressive at all. Yet we still have modern art? Because what makes something art is the feeling and soul behind it rather than the materials (or words) used, and I don’t think that’s something that machines can replicate.
I had a back and forth on here once about how reading for leisure is not accessible for everyone. I think there was a disagreement about the definition of leisure, so it was a bit pointless. But I think most people are at a point where all they want to do outside of school and work is zone out. Its even worse if you're working class because life is harder. To read, you have to be able to quiet your mind, which is what to me makes it inequitable. It's not impossible, but I think we need to start there and not pretend it's equally accessible. I mostly notice AI writing in Instagram captions and it makes me not read them, so idk. I do think if you like reading, you wouldn't want to read sanitized writing. But I think very few people make the leap from enjoying being read to to enjoying reading.
yeah, like to an extent, reading is a willpower issue. but current conditions make sustained focus on reading very fucking hard for a lot of people, and finger wagging does nothing to solve these issue—imo most of the time it’s self-aggrandizing at best. I think so often abt what my friends and family who work in schools have to go through w their students, and they get very little support from their administrations. we need to look at what is actually happening to kids in schools and online rather than gesturing towards what should be happening
Will banning cell phones make an impact?
I read a post earlier (was it AI??) about a woman who worked at a publishing agency saying that writers are submitting “AI grammar checked” books and that they all sound the same in certain ways. As a lover of books, especially the fantasy genre, (which is already somewhat redundant and has already had a number of AI-powered books released) I worry about my possible ignorance to it and keeping the shred of originality that exists in the fantasy (mostly romantic fantasy) world. How do ppl who aren’t creative writing majors or whose favorite author isn’t Ernest Hemingway suppose to know the difference?? How do us common folk play a part in preserving originality? Haha I had fun thinking about this :) thx
I don’t think reading is classist but people are on to something when they feel like literary fiction is becoming more and more theory-driven and is only intelligible or interesting if you have a graduate degree.