Audiobooks saved my sanity when I had a 2hr commute at my last job. Highly recommend listening if you don't have the space (mental or literal) to read books normally!

Lol.

America elected a felon rapist pedophile....twice.

Reading isn't a thing here anymore. Democracy probably won't be for long either.

P.S. I'm currently reading "The Magic Mountain".

My friend recently started reading after seeing me read so often. She kept bragging about how fast she can read pages and I was telling her to relax its not a race just enjoy the book. Fastforward a few days and she got like 30pages in and gave up. It was an ok book, thief of time by Terry Pratchett.

I think for a lot of people reading is so mentally different from what they're used to that its very hard to do let alone to find pleasure in.

I know I have found myself reading less because I spend so much time trying to stay aware of the fuckery, so that when I have time and a logical break to read my books I am too mentally exhausted or disinterested in reading further. I do know that I can and should temper the flow of information, but it's hard to look away from the fire despite the need to pause the doom for the mind. Balance, diversity and whatnot, right?

I've actually gotten back into reading. It's a nice escape from the digital world.

I love reading but I grew up before smart phones. I'm not sure reading and smart phone brain go together.

The people simply refused, all these years later, to abolish [the electoral college] that has led to some of the worst presidents in American history.

The EC is enshrined in the Constitution. The only way to "abolish" it would be to pass a constitutional amendment. That would have to first pass Congress, then be ratified by the states' legislatures. All of that is so far away from "the people" that it's disingenuous to blame "the people" for its still being in place.

Alternatively, there's also the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would not amend the constitution, but bypass its restrictions through agreement by signatory states. This has a much better chance of taking effect than a proper amendment. While this is a bit closer to "the people," it's still pretty far away.

e: I don't know where the parent comment this was a reply to went, but I'm leaving it anyway.

I now prefer audiobooks myself. I don’t know if this counts as reading though

I read so much when I was a kid and even through and after high school. Somewhere mid bachelors, I got too busy with my studies and stopped reading for pleasure. When I have attempted to read again, I find myself completely and utterly bored, unengaged, and wanting the experience to end. I stopped buying or checking out books 7 - 8 years ago. I miss it, but I can't experience pleasure from it anymore.

I hadn't read for fun for like a decade and a half. But in the last few months, I got myself hooked on yuri manga, and then yuri light novels. I kept hitting a wall whenever a manga wasn't done yet but the light novels were. I just kept saying "fuck it" and finishing with the novel, rather than waiting forever for the rest.

It happened with Otherside Picnic, it happened with I'm in Love with the Villainess, and a couple of others. Then I started just buying more ebooks, standalone stories without manga adaptations, for the fuck of it. Reading is great.

Hard to read when they ban the books you're interested in and cut library services.

I would debate streaming services having that significant of an impact. It's likely the same impact that traditional TV used to have, especially when VCRs entered the mainstream (into DVDs, Blurays, and around the same time, Streaming).

I think mobile gaming and social media would be more likely to blame. Not to mention algorithms. Maybe it's only me, but most algorithms rarely pick out things I was interested in (it was very easy to tell that they were just ads). And as the younger generation depends on algorithms, not hard to imagine that they slowly become disenfranchised with what they're reading if it's not something they really want to read.

But the real reason behind this is the education system. High schools were effectively turned into diploma mills. There's also a lot of bullying for teenage boys that like reading in the school system, and many boys do not have a high literacy rate in public schools. Repeated Republican governments in America have decimated the education system as well.

Hi am a reading expert.

Theyll be four million money now.

Jack reacher novels are a very easy & fun read. They should try that. Might even help some of the "male crisis" folks. Because the hero is a typical masculine all-American world-saver who is not macho in any way. Now I think of it, I wonder what Lee Child has written since 2016 and how it reflects on Trump1/2.