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[return to "In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse"]
1. mlsu+IP[view] [source] 2024-11-28 17:26:36
>>bertma+(OP)
The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration.

When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiological downsides and side-effects as those things; the only material loss you have is the loss of time.

But far more remarkable than that it's simply a waste of time, and rarely articulated, is this psychological loss. The destruction of the self. That echoes through a person's life, to their relationships, their self-construction, etc. It is those echoes that we are now dealing with on a mass sociological scale.

By the way. "There" has a lot of upsides too. People can be creative, productive, expressive while they are "there" too. Creating, being funny, being social, etc. That's why this is so hard.

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2. kleins+GY[view] [source] 2024-11-28 18:42:53
>>mlsu+IP
You’re commenting on an article about reading, which is also a solitary passive consumption activity. I suspect you’re not trying to make the point that reading books destroys relationships and self construction, so this seems like a roundabout way of saying that your favored passive consumption activity is better than what other people choose.
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3. aziazi+j21[view] [source] 2024-11-28 19:11:51
>>kleins+GY
I wouldn’t consider reading as a passive consumption. You have to 1. Lead and follow a tempo, essentially moving your eyes at the speed of you thought 2. Using imagination to associate what you read with other knowledges.

TV and ticktock don’t need 1. You can interact with a remote or you scrolling-thumb but interaction is not required to consume.

2. Isn’t a necessity neither but people do use TV, ticktock or music to "empty their mind" by thinking to nothing else but the consumption flow. You can do that with reading, but that’s not an experience people usually like and they come back to the place their mind left.

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4. Spivak+1a1[view] [source] 2024-11-28 20:18:36
>>aziazi+j21
Number two but in book form is "beach reads" which can include your favorite trash romance or the latest "dad book" Vince Flynn / Clive Cussler / Tom Clancy thing. And given the huge popularity of the two genres folks are reaching for books to turn off plenty.
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