Reading is becoming a lost art

Ever since I was young you could say I’ve had a love/hate relationship with reading.

I really enjoy reading, but sometimes it seems difficult to find the time or I just don’t have the mental capacity.

Reading seems like it is becoming a lost art these days.

With technology advancing like it is, reading has really been pushed to the back burner because we have so much information right at our fingertips.

You think we would read more right? With so much information available, it seems like we’re reading less.

We don’t have to read and critically think for the answer when Google gives it to us immediately.

We’ve created a world of instant gratification and no one has any patience anymore. I can be pretty impatient myself.

Because of the way our society is right now I think a lot of people are so tired and constantly on the go that by the time they’re able to just be, it’s easier to pick up their cell phone, doom scroll and disassociate.

From work to kids and everything in between, we have almost zero down time.

I joke with some of the people I see on a daily basis about if they ever get to go home.

There are several people who get to work before the sun is up, work all day, then they’re out on the ball field coaching or taking a trip out town with their team for a game, then returning late at night only to do it all again the next day.

I know some of these people also have kids of their own and I wonder how they do it sometimes.

But that’s part of it too, we’re so busy with life, who has time to read?

I applaud those people who are able to make time for it, even if it’s just a few minutes every day.

There’s just so much going on.

When I was in college there was always so much assigned reading that I felt like it was impossible to get through all of it.

In speaking with others, a lot of other people were in the same boat.

Many of the people I went to college with were commuter students who had a full time credit schedule while also working a full time job.

It’s understandable why people are reading less because so much is expected of all us in daily life.

It can seem impossible to find balance.

Supportive resources seem to be dwindling in a government that isn’t helping its citizens in basic ways.

They make support seem like a privilege instead of a human right.

I say it’s a right and it’s owed to us because we’re paying taxes that are supposed to go to these resources.

It’s disheartening when the government disregards the people who pay the most in taxes and can’t explain where they’re spending millions of our tax dollars while we slave away trying to bring some meaning to our lives.

I’ve said this before but a lot of people are one paycheck or one emergency away from completely falling apart.

We shouldn’t have to live this way.

People working any kind of a full time job should be able to have a decent place to live and the basics when it comes to quality of life.

I feel like our brains are changing in the ways we connect with people, have relationships and conversations.

Conversation is becoming a lost art because people are reading less. Our brains aren’t being challenged in the ways we think about life and the world around us anymore.

We aren’t able to sit down and engage in these ways anymore.

There isn’t time. Our never-ending list of tasks and scheduled events is looming.

We all want that instant gratification that our phones and the internet give us.

I read something from a writer named James Marriot that stuck out to me.

He said, “If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history.”

Cell phones and the internet are fantastic tools for us, don’t get me wrong, but the decline in literacy and basic critical thinking skills is unsettling.

Social media has become everything that it wasn’t meant to be.

I think what was meant to help all of us stay in touch and share our lives with others has done much of the opposite.

Instead of people sharing their lives as they are, it’s become of a game of presenting yourself in a very specific light with picture filters and all.

Marriot also said “the world of the screen is going to be a much choppier place than the world of print: more emotional, more angry, more chaotic.”

In his writing he suggests, “Such a world surely encourages the rise of authoritarianism and an illiberal society.”

Many of the posts on social media, especially the political ones, are simply rage bait.

The keyboard warriors feed right into it like clockwork. Just check the comment section.

Now with AI, many of those posts are meant to bait people to click and comment. More clicks, more views, more money.

Maybe Marriot was on to something. The world definitely feels more angry, more emotional and more chaotic right now.

It’s disheartening to know that the people we have in charge at the moment are banking on us feeding right into that exact ploy.

And many people do. It’s manipulation at its finest.

A lot of social media posts are taken at face value and false information spreads like wild fire. We’re witnesses to it every day.

This is where reading and critical thinking come in. Question what you read and search for facts and more information before taking the bait.

Reading and critical thinking lead to great conversations and forward thinking.

This is where creativity and new ideas are born.

We need to connect again. Our differences are what contribute to our society’s most incredible creations.

Music is a huge one. Look at how music has evolved through the years.

Do you ever hear a song and think, “Wow, someone created that?”

Humans are incredible beings.

We need to overcome the manipulation and chaos.

I hope we can find time to read a little bit more. We surely need it.

Between the library, online resources, e-books and all of that technology we have at our fingertips, reading is for everyone.

I’ve always thought that if you’re someone who doesn’t like reading, maybe you just haven’t found what you like to read yet.

Amanda White is a staff writer at the Mariposa Gazette and can be reached at amanda@mariposagazette.com