/lit/ - Literature

It's a task that requires concentration, and since most people see books as just devices to tell a story, people are opting for easier, less attention intensive ways to distract themselves.

>>13367368
Because you can't put Schopenhauer in a pair of Nike basketball shoes and have him hold an iPhone.

Technology is in, books are out. Video games make more money than every other entertainment industry. Musicians are walking billboards. So the kids grow up thinking books are gay and inferior because if they were cool Drake would be posing with them on instagram. That and books require effort, unlike movies, music and video games which are like a red bull, instant kick in the nuts of dopamine.

Too much sex and masturbation. Ruins the mind.

>>13367368
The global population is more literate than in any time in history. People have access to the entirety of human knowledge in their pocket. People read more now than ever, your point is why do people not pick up bound dead trees full of words from people who lived hundreds of years ago? Because corporations have developed psychological strongholds over attention spans of the populace. This has been true ever since people learned to speak. Propaganda and convincing others has been going on for ages. It happened with the spoken word, then with the written word, then with the printed word, and now with the digital word. Nothing is new and your question is stupid. You should feel bad that you killed a thread for this.

>>13367368
Because reading the classics and pre or anti-modern philosophy is considered to be fascist.

>>13367393
Video games also require some degree of effort and active engagement. They are not instant dopamine, like you claim. You only get that dopamine once you complete a level or objective, depending on the kind of game it is.

>>13367560
Some games require effort and engagement, many don't. No different than any other medium, the other guy is wrong.

>>13367560
>>13367586
Shut the fuck up. I've played video games for 20 years.

The mental effort required is below the level of driving a car. It's nowhere near as stimulating as reading.

>>13367368
Its been almost two days since i last finished one.

I need to get back to the rest

>>13367606
Just because you've played video games for 20 years does not mean that you have tried every genre. There are plenty of games that require alot of focus and strategy. If all you do is play mainstream stuff obviously you will not get to experience those games. As for reading, it is not mentally demanding or challenging at all. It is a very relaxing and laid back activity, unless you are reading a text that uses alot of archaic language or unfamiliar vocabulary.

>>13367636
>does not mean that you have tried every genre. There are plenty of games that require alot of focus and strategy. If all you do is play mainstream stuff obviously you will not get to experience those games.
I've played more games and genre's than you could name, don't lecture me on the subject idiot. Even the most mentally intensive video games, multiplayer games, are brainlet tier.

>As for reading, it is not mentally demanding or challenging at all.
Stop reading fiction

>>13367683
>Even the most mentally intensive video games, multiplayer games, are brainlet tier.

Multiplayer games are not the most mentally intensive, faggot. This shows to me clearly that you don't play non mainstream games. In general, strategy/puzzle games along with some rpgs tend to be the most mentally intensive, in my personal experience.

>Stop reading fiction
Non fiction is not necessarily mentally demanding either, unless you are reading something whilst lacking important prerequisite knowledge. If a book is challenging to understand even if you have that knowledge, then the author has failed to communicate his ideas effectively. Or you are reading a very old text

>>13367728
>In general, strategy/puzzle games along with some rpgs tend to be the most mentally intensive
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Ok retard, goodnight. Don't stay up too late, you have school in the morning.

>>13367368
reading has been superseded with more efficient and rewarding systems of entertainment. the same ideas can be conveyed faster and better through other mediums.

>>13367606
I never said it was. Video games must have rotted your brain because you obviously can't read

Modern video games, unless they have a riveting and moving plot, provide no tangible benefits that couldn't be gained from doing other activities. The golden age of story telling and individual interaction with that story is over. Everything now is either SPORTS, railroaded, or so open world there is no plot. The beginning middle and end of aristotle is over due to the focus on an endless middle. They are designed to be played for as long as possible, not to effect an individual like literature, art, or kino does.

Late stage capitalism and too much entertainment at our fingertips.

>>13367368
Faster and more entertaining means of information are avaliable to the general public. To your average Joe, it is easier to just watch a 10min youtube video on something they want to know, or procrastinate watching Netflix, than it is to read

>>13367732
Sorry, but thats not an argument. My main point still stands: video games can be mentally/physically challenging, and are not instant dopamine in all cases, like you claim. Books on the other hand are not challenging to READ. The concepts within some non fiction books might be difficult to grasp, but generally if you have good reading skills and the prerequisite knowledge its not that hard. Books are not supposed to be mentally challenging, they are a medium for storing and relaying information (in the case of non fiction)

>>13367606
It’s like driving a car without speed limits or traffic laws

>>13367368
I started reading more because I like physical copies and video games for PC is pretty much digital only but there are still lots of physical book releases and plenty of used ones I haven't read yet. Most people who play games as their primary entertainment are corporate cum guzzlers that I want dead.
The Easton Press release of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by "Sir Braphuffington" James Joyce is the next book I'm going to read, probably tomorrow.

>>13367798
now this is based

>>13367758
>>13367756
>>13367560
Video games never got in the way of reading.
Porn, sex and masturbation did.

>>13367758
That only applies to the big AAA titles created by greedy corporation, who dont want to take risks. AA games and indie games still have plots. And occasionally you have AAA titles like prey are the witcher that have decent plots by video game standards.

>Modern video games, unless they have a riveting and moving plot, provide no tangible benefits that couldn't be gained from doing other activities.
People play video games primarily for entertainment, so it does not matter that they are not beneficial. Most fiction books are also not beneficial to the average reader, who already has decent verbal and written communication skills. The only benefit fictional books provide is improving vocabulary and verbal/written English. The benefits that such improvements can provide to the average individual plateau eventually.

Also, all other entertainment mediums besides books offer very little tangible benefits, barring a few exceptional pieces of work/non fiction. Atleast video games involve mental engagement, instead of just passive consumption.

>>13367846
Please go back to /v/

>>13367835
I masturbate alot but i still read.

>>13367846
AA and indie developers are worse than AAA in a way, they were the main ones to push charging for a fucking download and all the negatives that come with it. Try criticizing them and you get
>support the developer!
>they aren't AAA so you gotta support them!
They don't even have the decency to admit that paying for a download is nothing more than giving them, a company, a donation.
Any claim video games had to being art was thrown out the window the moment the entire industry started pushing digital distribution just so they could make more money with less effort while also releasing lower quality games. The only reason they want to be recognized as art is so they can't be censored by the US government.
>mental engagement
You mean becoming brainwashed drones for the video game industry? I don't consider that to be positive mental engagement.

>>13367868
Digital distribution is a thing for movies, tv shows and books as well. Plenty of indie games actually do get physical releases, btw.

So do tv shows or other media having digital distribution disqualify them from being art? I don't think so. At the end of the day, the unethical practices of greedy corporations does not disqualify video games as a whole, (many of which donot incorporate unethical strategies) from being art.

>You mean becoming brainwashed drones for the video game industry? I don't consider that to be positive mental engagement.
We are not brainwashed drones. Many of us criticize unethical practices, but idiots still buy from the companies which are responsible.

>>13367393
Written language is a technology too

>>13367560
You’re being bombarded by flashy colours, sound effects and music when you’re playing, and that itself will cause dopamine release. You don’t need to attain objectives, just the act of playing a video game is stimulating in itself.

>>13367560
lol they are literally engineered to give you constant dopamine. Its like a dopamine treadmill.

(also play games, so not pretending to be above you guys, lets just be real about what they are.)

>>13368210
Imagine being stupid enough to make this pedantic comment. Fuck off.

>>13367393
This. free solutions aren't promoted very often.

>>13367782

> Books are not supposed to be mentally challenging, they are a medium for storing and relaying information

If you think books aren’t supposed to be mentally challenging, then you must not have evolved beyond Harry Potter. There are plenty of books which provoke thinking from your end

>>13367782

> The concepts within some non fiction books might be difficult to grasp

Are you retarted? By "reading" we don't mean recognizing words on a page or making sounds of the words. We mean you read and understand the ideas.

What the fuck is going on in this thread? Is school out?

>>13367922
Digital distribution is far worse for games due to the nature of the medium. Just having the option to pay for a game digitally has ruined gaming, it allows for what is plaguing the industry today such as rampant DLC and mtx, games being intentionally released unfinished or unplayable without a patch because they can easily patch it through whatever platform which further encourages them to be released that way, being charged for a download, having to go through some console wannabe platform to legally play games, easy access which means more casuals play games which means games are made for them which means lower quality games, etc. Digital distribution should not be paid for, don't care about physical copies? Fine, then you should be exclusively pirating. Even if you exclusively pirate you should want all games to be sold physical only because that has already proven itself to be the best environment for great games to be made and you'll still be able to pirate anyways.
It does negatively affect movies too because digital distribution via streaming "services" is being pushed and physical copies ignored. Streaming """""services"""""" like Netflix' "4k UHD" is not 4k UHD, it has a fraction of the bit rate of a blu-ray, let alone a 4k UHD blu-ray, some don't even have the quality of what a DVD can provide.
8k is already being talked about but 4k TVs aren't being used anywhere near their potential because dumb fucks buy 4k TVs just to watch their bit starved streams.
>defending companies charging for a fucking download
>defending the distribution method that has done undeniable widespread damage to games
Die

>>13369450
Valve, who used literal brainwashing tactics to push digital distribution and Steam, monitor game testers' brain activity to see how they respond to the game then change the game to get the best response possible. Their games still suck though, HL2 which is their most touted is barely a game.

>>13367732
Reading a book is harder than Victoria 2 or Hearts of Iron 3?

>>13367368
>Why doesn't anyone read anymore?
at what point in history did regular people read?

>>13367560
Stop playing video games you faggot

>>13369685
More mentally stimulating, yes.

>>13367409
I just finished Oliver Twist.

>>13367368
When did anyone ever read? For most of humanity no one read besides a very tiny population. These are boom times for reading

>>13369986
>character named Master Bate.
Charles can be a dick at times

this explains why pretty succinctly

>>13367404

>>13367368
Widely available entertainment
TV
Vidya
Internet shitposting
Youtube
Its never been more accessible to the masses, so people dont waste their time with books anymore
They believe all information can be found on the internet and therefore there is no reason to read anything else
>Why read a philosopher when i can just watch a 5 minute School of Life or Philosophy Tube video?
>Why study history when I can just watch Netflix and HBO?
>Why take any interest in religion when I can watch Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the telly?
>Why read an epic poem or classic tale when I can just watch Avengers?

>>13367368
I think that book The Shallows has part of the answer. You should read it.

>>13369712
It was unironically better when only the nobility and the church could read
Regular people are fucking stupid and self destructive
Knowledge will be the death of humanity and it's all the commoners fault

>>13367368
There was a girl at a rave i went to that looks like OPs pic, and my lust fir her made me want to fuck her. But i was in a relationship and she was in highschool.

>>13370730
>and she was in highschool
Take a seat right over there.

>>13367368
the people who read for me, indeed

>>13367368
For one the statement is wrong, people read more than ever in history, so the question is rather why they prefer other mediums more ... which is kinda given.

Movies require far less effort and attention to enjoy. Motherfuckers browse on their phones while watching Netflix. Vidya is made based on mechanics that keep people addicted and keeps their attention. And both usually tell more relatable stories. No one gives a shit about some sweaty, Greek homos.

Also most books just aren't written very well and usually with an audience in mind, that has nothing else going on. Someone who risks getting syphilis from having some fun and has no public executions to go to, is way more inclined to read than someone who has to poke a screen to be bombarded with entertainment.

>>13367782
>video games can be mentally/physically challenging
Not the games that are minimally popular, especially for kids brainwashed since young age to think in vidya logic.

E-sports do qualify I guess, but the challenge comes from the competition against another human mind, the game only offers a platform.

>>13370732
She was 18

guis i dont know how to read anymore. someone please tell me whats going on in thsi thread

>>13369685
Vicky 2 isn't hard, and hoi3 is just micromanagment

>>13367368
Everyone's attention span is shot to shit by Youtube and Instagram and living in a big city. Everyone's biggest fear is boredom because we can't bear to look at ourselves and the choices we've made.

>>13367368
As others have mentioned the issue has to do with our attention, concentration, and focus. Harold Bloom was right when he lamented the effect of the screen. I am becoming convinced that excessive exposure to the Screen, video games, social media, etc. literally causes brain damage.

Apparently meditation can help to improve these things.

>>13367368
They do, but they're all girls and it's all YA fiction.

>>13367368
more people read than ever before. you're absolutely retarded if you think braindead keeping up with the joneses housewives in the 1950s were reading dostoevsky and plato for fun. humanity has always had brainlet-entertainment. magazines, pulp fiction, comic books, television, movies, radio dramas, etc. if not just gossipping on the fucking telephone all day. grow up.

there has never been a better time to be into literature than now. one of the biggest youtube e-celebs just tweeted about reading mishima and plato, for god's sake. tons of people are reading, even normie retards.

>>13371467
read some dime paperbacks from the 70s and tell me that they're any better than today's YA. it's the same exact shit, different era.

leave 4chan and go outside. you guys are beyond retarded.

Reading picrel right now, freshly released, but only in Polish. The title is 'After writing'.

We're in the post-literary era where most humans moved from reading to watching and the technology is pushing towards ever more direct forms of experience transfers. The closest reference we have for this is the leap from verbal to nominal culture with the advent of writing few thousand years ago, and the process we're in right now brings us from nominal to adjectival - and this happens through youtube, porn, vr, and whatever comes next, like direct neural links and the singularity.

As for those claiming that literacy is on historical peak and that people read on average more than ever - yes, and no. If we take reading seriously, people never read much, and neither do they read now. That literacy people reference is purely communicational (twitter, insstant messaging, press) and almost entirely non-existent among 'leaders' like politicians and entrepreneurs (although one could argue it never has in these groups). Even modern academia pushes people away from reading - doctoral candidates don't have time to read much beyond their professional circlejerk, while early teaching and learning are being gradually relegated to newer technologies, both more accessible and more profitable. If entertainment was evee the domain of literature, it has long moved on.

If the limit for this process constitutes a gain from the literary culture is anyone's guess. The answer from an erudite reader is that it is a total tragedy. To people raised in the nominal culture of written word these movements can feel nothing short of barbaric. The reality is that it doesn't matter and there is probably little reason for sensationalism.

>>13367368
Because there is LITERALLY no reason to spend your time reading books if you have the classics with you and a few masterpieces of dead authors. Everything becomes superfluous after a point. Reading will not pay the bills, nor make your life any easier, nor even give you a way to cope, which at least stoic philosophy attempts to do.

>>13367368
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/vlogosphere/

>The main problem with video is of course that it is inherently much less K-selected than blogging. It takes more effort to write and process text, but its information density is also much higher as well as the complexity of the arguments you can make. To a significant extent I agree with commenters like German_reader, as well as Ron Unz himself, that the shift towards video might be one of the indicators of looming idiocracy. But what can one do. Video now clearly dominates so far as raw viewership numbers are concerned – and by a huge margin.

>>13372105
>tfw your country hasn't lost a single I.Q point

>>13372138
You idiot, where the country is gray it's because they have no data on it.

>>13372145
>You idiot, where the country is gray it's because they have no data on it.
t. person who lives in one of the red countries

>>13367368
for me its because of my computer habits and my upbringing. I was never reading books I wanted. then when I had more freedom I didn't do anything in moderation. thus I browse 4chan

pls what happen in thread I cant reab good

>>13372154
>can't read a diagram
>calls someone else stupid
no wonder /lit/ has been complete shit recently.

>>13372105
What the fuck is this rubbish article? Sargon of Akkad is right wing? Lmfao what

>>13370752
Bloodborne is pretty challenging, esp in new game plus

>>13369777
No.

>>13367560
>what are feedback loops

>>13369964
He is talking about difficulty/challenge, not mental stimulation. They are not necessarily the same thing.

>>13369673
How is HL2 barely a game faggot? It fits the definition of game.

>>13369666
I am not defending digital distribution. I am saying that just because digital distribution for games exists, does not mean that they are no longer an art form (like the person i replied to was trying to claim)

>>13373974
Some video games involve instant gratification, but not all

>>13367368
Reading is active and requires mental effort.
Watching tv is passive and requires no mental effort.

>>13374021
Counterpoint: shitpost on anonymous image board is active yet requires little to none mental effort.

>>13372105

Based HBD poster.

>>13367368
Because they spend all their time posting trollops on the internet

>>13367368
Because there's better shit to do. Cinema, recorded music, and ludography have crushed literature

I currently hire someone to read threads and I dictate to them the reply I would like them to type up. I refuse to look at typeset. Thank you Charles, that will be all.

>>13374496
Kek

>>13367395
>>13367409
>>13367851
all of these

>>13374472
not this

>>13367380