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So last night I was sitting here working on my latest project when I had an epiphany: Why should I even bother with my latest project when I know few people will take the time to stop and read it?

If you can draw, people will stop and admire your efforts, and some may try to read things into it (no pun intended), but they're done in minutes and you are praised for your work or ridiculed for how bad it was. But with writing of any kind, people see a large number of letters that they have to read and think about the meaning before they decide whether they understand it, let alone like it. I've written a number of novellae and short stories and posted them in places where people may read, but my works and the works of other writers nary received any comments and fewer visitors than any single visual art gallery.

What has happened to the written arts? People are too lazy to read something. They would rather just look at a picture and have their vision of it do the work for them, instead of reading words and producing an image of some situation that is far more explicit than any painting or sketching, which only reveals a single instant in the life of the setting it depicts.

It is more or less the same thing with television. TV is so popular these days because it posesses the ability of instant gratification--one watches something on the TV, and can see for himself everything from the slightest facial expression to the biggest explosion. TV has corrupted the minds of the people, and the Internet seeks to do further corruption. People expect to be shocked and titillated right away instead of reading words and figuring everything out; if they can't figure it out, then they feel stupid because they couldn't understand what they had read. As a result, TV and movies have become more and more action-packed and are chock full of right-NOW! drama; TV is also helping people use fewer brain cells than movies with its reality TV programs.

And music? What has happened to music? More than 20 years ago, musicians who were good enough got signed on to record companies who would produce and sell records for them. These days, if your band is good enough AND can attract large amounts of fans from one or more groups, you get signed on with a record company. Though these days it seems that being signed on with a major record company means you may only perform certain kinds of music that the company wants you to perform in order to keep up your ideal "image" and thus keep your loyal fanbase eating out of your hand. If you're good enough to do all that as long as your contract is, you've got your fame and fortune all sown up.

[Microprose Veteran]

If it's of any consolation to you: I rarely watch television. And if I do, it's mainly for documentaries on Discovery and National Geographic.

Currently I am busy rereading "1984." It's better than I remembered it to be. It's got very dark humor.

Today's generation is being brought up by tv-console games and anything that flashes and explodes on the tv screen or the big screen. Movies more and more resemble ads for Playstation games etc.

I'm very pessimistic. When I was a kid, grown ups warned me that reading comics too much would make me lazy and that I should read a decent book. These days, how many kids know what a decent book is?

[Shunk Eat Enemy]

i know theres good intention at hand but isnt this going a little narrow minded

[a1s]

woah, wait. so what do you propose we do about it? read more books? I (personaly) read enough of books for my college (+my screwed up handwriting, I hate my handwriting :angry: ) and other people probably do too. Globalsation is allready underway, you can't stop it, the deals with RCs will only be getting worse over time. and a good abstract picture allways has more personalized meaning to a person than any text does.

P.S. it's now summer and I'm enjoying my book collection, and would (probably not just me) be interested in an example of your literary pieces.

[lethe]

I read around 40/50 poems a day, plus always have a book with me when I'm at the internet (virtual books in my ftp). If I was to reply to all of them, I'd surely have less time to read them all.

Shouldn't you be writing for yourself? Or when you write, you're actually thinking how many people will like each line?

These days, if your band is good enough AND can attract large amounts of fans from one or more groups, you get signed on with a record company

They don't need to be good.

[Sean]

Originally posted by Microprose Veteran@Jul 9 2005, 12:14 AM
These days, how many kids know what a decent book is?

I do.

I from a class of 30 am the only regular reader I know of, this is reflected in my oral presentations and what not. I have a much larger and more diverse vocabulary than most in my class. The very thought of spending hours on end reading a book would make most people in my class cringe. I was like this a few years ago then I found myself a decent book and got into reading. Books are just as enjoyable as Films, Games etc. The problem is not enough teens such as myself are willing to search to find a type of book that they like. If they pick up one bad book and read it they'll presume there all like that.

[Sebatianos]

Well there are quite a few points I have to agree with you Triton (all you've said about television and music), but I can't really agree with you on the reading issue.

The thing is - people never actually read stuff (at least not the majority).
Those who read for the pleasure of being taken on a literary jurney to a world rich and mind boggling still read (there are many people that still read).
But it is true that less and less people read (statistically). It's because of television - yes. But these are the people that are now watching sopa operas (and use to read soap operas in the past). I couldn't care less if these people do not read anymore (is it really bad if they stopped printing numerous Juan and Anita and the sad love X-angle of their passion while visitng the beaches of lust in the romantic and exotic Acapulco).
Oh and the yellow press has a lot to do with this also. Such people can simply read the same stories they read in book (about fictional characters) in yellos press (about celebreties).

Trust me - not more the 15% (and that's a really optimistic number already) of people are on the intelectual level high enough to really apreaciate a good book (or really understand anything that isn't shallow and with an unmistakable moral served to them on a plate).

The world has not deteriorated - it just stopped covering up for its stupidity.

[Quintopotere]

You are right, Triton, about the mass media that are occupying our free time and when we are not in front of the Television set, we must buy and consume... we must have all and now!

And even this forum is working against my reading skills: i stay here 1 hour a day (maybe more...) , in 1 hour i'm able to read 40 pages so, calculating books of 300 pages, i can't read 4 books per month because i come in this forum... too bad for my intellectual level :not_ok: :bleh:

People are too lazy to read something

Well if you'll write something in italian (or spanish too) i'll surely read and comment it! But i'm too lazy to read novels in english... :whistle:

[Playbahnosh]

All of ya know how long posts I use to make. But almost none of you take the time to read it actually. It is not becouse you are not interested in what I want to say, you are just scared of the many letters it has

Sadly, the reading era seems to be over soon. The quality book getting vanished, and more crappy books come to the market with un-literalistic texts, huge pictures and fonts. Just becouse the TV and Internet damaged people won't read that much. Hairy Putter is a modern cr@p. I read all of those books, and I liked the story of the first three. After the third book(the time when JKR got REALLY famous), the story became a hunk-a-junk. Why? Becouse the kids need this kinda stuff... Bleh... They have no sense for REAL literacy. Shame.

The mass media is just one thing. That makes people lazy. They don't have to read no more, or understand anything, becouse they get an already digested form of information. Ex: "My heart skips a beat when I see you. You chained me with your beauty(...etc)" translates to "I luv ya beech!". I hope your undestand my little example. The language shrinks, words vanishes, sentences became ununderstandable. Shame.

I am no englishman. I am Hungarian, so I just LEARNED the English language. But I had some really strange experiences. I met with an American guy on a chat channel, ca. one year ago. I was writing about... um... I don't know, it doesn't matter, but the guy suddenly stopped me. He couldn't understand some words I used in my text. Unbeliavable. The wordpower of some people who's mother laungure is English, shrunk. Opinion?

The books are good. It teaches you to have your own imagination. If your just watch TV, you get ready images, no need to imagine stuff. If you have no imagination, your life will suffer. You can't think, do arts and stuff... You loose your originality
I read ALOT. Now, my favorite wirter is Philip K. Dick, he is the best. You cannot predict what will happen in his books, it is TOTALY awesome. I read "The man in the High Castle" now. You should try it , worth it k:

If you read this, you done something for your healthy thinking

[Sebatianos]

Originally posted by Playbahnosh@Jul 9 2005, 03:37 PM
I met with an American guy on a chat channel, ca. one year ago. I was writing about... um... I don't know, it doesn't matter, but the guy suddenly stopped me. He couldn't understand some words I used in my text. Unbeliavable. The wordpower of some people who's mother laungure is English, shrunk. Opinion?

Well that could also be because of leet talk. Even when people communicate using writen words they do just about anything to shorten the words, to write the words in a different way and to ad coursing words in the meaningless statements they make.

Like I said before - most of the poeple don't wanna think, and even more of them don't think at all. It was always like that, but once upon a time there was a difference between the thinking class and the unthinking class. You had intelectuals and the regular people.
Now the regular people can get to just about every place an intelectual can.

Clicking doesn't help this much either. Once upon a time you needed to have some knowledge and skills in order to comunicate to people over the net. Now you just click a few times and you are there.
So what I'm saying is - the situation didn't got worse, but it has become more obvious.