alt Hacker NewsIt's not uncommon to see people (and young people) reading on public transport here in Spain. The odd thing is how popular actual paper books are vs. e-readers. Since I got my Kindle in 2015 I haven't read a paper book since.
That said, I find it odd that people assume that reading a book is always higher quality than reading the internet etc. - many books are pretty low quality.
And if we look at stuff like the PISA scores, it doesn't seem like this supposed higher rate of reading is paying many dividends.
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Most places where people do their weekly groceries in Spain have at least a small book section if not a bookstore by the entrance. It's a typical thing to bring over to the beach or a weekend trip that doesn't matter if it gets damaged or lost.
Myself I have an e-ink reader but almost always take a paper book on the subway. It's still better quality print, not fragile in any way that matters, and I don't have to think about charge or aging electronics. I only bring the e-reader for manuals and such that change too often to be worth the paper cost, but still miss the old coding manuals with their ad-hoc page sizes, the spatial sense of where the information was in a book was part of the memory anchoring.
> That said, I find it odd that people assume that reading a book is always higher quality than reading the internet etc.
It's not all that odd to me. The barrier of entry to getting something printed and published is much, much, higher than putting something online, which effects the quality quite a bit.
Obviously there are complete wastes of paper out there in terms of published books, but as a generalisation it's not odd to presume a printed book is going to be of higher quality than a webpage.
> many books are pretty low quality.
Even low-quality books have words people might not know. I often find people who don't read books (physical or eBook) have a much lower vocabulary, and they typically don't value vocabulary, which as an avid reader, I find weird, but I guess to each their own.
>That said, I find it odd that people assume that reading a book is always higher quality than reading the internet etc. - many books are pretty low quality.
That's a weird take. The internet has basically no barriers. Book publishing, with all of its many flaws, does. Anyone can technically self publish a book, but the odds that you'll find someone on the subway reading it are small. So odds are the book you see people reading on transit is on average better than an internet content.
I wonder if this is the reason Spain resisted the advent of far right for so long, compared to its European counterparts.
I´ve ended up switching back to paper for half of my reading. Kids prefer paper for reading to. Kindle goes with me on vacation when I don´t want to drag around 2-3 kilos of paper (Reading chunky history books at the moment).
> That said, I find it odd that people assume that reading a book is always higher quality than reading the internet etc. - many books are pretty low quality.
You've received several answers on the "quality" side due to books being harder to create, but I'll cover two more arguments:
1. Nobody's "reading the internet" anymore, especially not on their phones. They're mindlessly scrolling short-form video, either muted or blasting them really loud with no headphones, if my experience of Spanish subway is accurate.
2. Even if all books were just printed directly from random internet pages, and there was zero difference in quality, it would be a huge step-up to go from reading one internet page at a time, to focusing on the same content for 200+ pages in a row. There is huge value in giving ourselves the longer attention span.