If you’re reading this, thank you for proving me and all these other bookworm smug wrong. Please continue reading regardless of the fact that this article isn’t really that great, informative or truthful since fact checking is a tiresome activity and like everyone else I am a lazy bastard that is just using a catchy title to attract traffic to this website. If you’re an avid reader you will find many useless articles on the cyberspace that is just fucking annoying. You will never pay too much attention on a single tab especially if it’s too wordy. Therefore this will be short, quick, not exactly precise and hopefully fun.
So why is it a majority of folks tend to think that nobody reads anymore?
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore.”
– Steve Jobs
I don’t know about you but I don’t trust people name Steve. No matter how idolized a person is, he is only a man and Human Beings are prone to fuckery and mistakes. I don’t believe reading is going out of style no matter what the statistics are saying. Maybe I’m a delusional writer that cannot except the fact that I’m in a dying business. Sure we may not be reading thick books or lengthy articles as much as we used to but unlike our grandparents we have way more visual media to consume and it’s always easier to watch than to read. The act of reading involves an exercise of the imagination, whether fabricating the settings of a fictional scene or creating the preferable voice of an article that suits the persona of the writing. (I hope the voice you’re imagining for me is a mixture of Jared Leto and Benedict Cumberbatch stuck in an insane asylum.) Unlike reading, videos already predetermine all the necessary variables so that you don’t have to use your mind too much. And pictures are just well eye-candy that you admire for a few minutes.
So yeah that’s one reason why the amount of time given to reading is declining.
Secondly, the articles we glance at on the internet are less than appealing especially if there is more than 3 long paragraph with little visual companions. This is why sites like Buzzfeed and Cracked.com is always in lists style to ensure easier reading and more friendly structure rather than articles that reminds them of college assignments or the term & condition agreements. (Ironically, I am not taking my own advise) We have a 24 hours of internet connectivity and the attention span of a goldfish. One minute we’ll be watching a tragic news about the killings of student in Africa, the next we’ll be staring at kittens or masturbating to our Ex-es. Some people might even do it all at once, I don’t recommend it.
Internet has allowed a flooding of information but with a little comprehension. We easily forget about everything. As we clear the cache on our computers so does our memories. Reading goes against this. It tends to stick in your long-term memory better than videos or visuals, but the daily internet habits already sink into your system and its hard to break from an addiction. We are addicted to the quick burst of pleasurable new discoveries of our virtual ritual. I am too guilty of this. It’s just the effect of endless surfing on the world-wide-web and reading is like a huge speed bump, its slows shit down when things are in hyper speed. This is also a reason why social bonding seems to look like a gathering of anti-social people playing with their phones since your friend’s face is not that interactive and you can’t touch it without looking like a creep.
Another reason why people don’t read as much as the publishing house wish they did is because many of the works out there in circulation are just soooooooooooooooooooo dull. It’s the same boring topic over and over again with little new fresh idea to add. Re-post and Re-blogged underneath a new title. Sure there is still a handful of awesome stories out there but its being drowned out. If you want to write a proper book that will attract readers you have to compete with other mediums of entertainments and the writers being published right now have a lack of understanding of the new market audience. The new technology gives birth by killing the old and if the publishers are smart, they will find those writers who are aware of this fact.
The last and main reason why reading is dying is because we don’t care anymore. We don’t care for the writers who sit down and research for hours to just ensure a quality article. We don’t care for those writers whose main ambition is getting a hard-cover novel published and not expanding their skills to scriptwriting or anything else. And if you’re a journalist or a columnist, we don’t care anymore about you since we can be a citizen journalist with our twitters and other social media while completely ignoring the fact that you actually need to double-check your facts and we don’t. We don’t even care if the consequence of false news affects people lives, we are not being held responsible for misinformation. We don’t care about writers since we know we too can write. Maybe not to a professional level but good enough.
We don’t read because we think we can do it better.
But we don’t do shit. We’re lazily scrolling through 9Gag with one hand at our crotch thinking we’re smarter than everyone else cause that’s what happen when you’re endlessly bombarded with similar opinions regarding on any topics.
False Ego. Laziness.
Abundance of Distractions.
Told you this post is going to bad. Sorry I lied about it being short or fun.
Zero Ducks Given 
Human civilization has begun with writing and as naturally reading. However, in this century people got used to complain about “not having the time”. Visuals have been placed at first of their priorities. Because, it would be suit their book. Reading has been causing the wasting of time. Is it true? No, I do not think so. It is easy way to elude of the responsibility of civilization’s required.
And, it is easy way for the sellers of “communication tools”. They and their propagandas (both openly and brain washing ways) prompt the people to live in this way. I think, this is the beginning of the humankind collapse. Because, who reads less is meant less thinking and not questioning. And questioning is the main differentness of the human brain next to the other living things on this planet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And that is why we should write all the human knowledge into our Computers and hope that our Artificial Intelligence would not make the same mistakes as we do. At least they have no biases of the information being input. Plus they read way faster than we do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolutely right, Earthling friend:)
LikeLiked by 1 person