No Spanish Reading Crisis?

I've seen many of these types of articles, and usually they are taking about long form reading, meaning books.

> The Prince from Machiavelli is required

In Spain? Never heard of that, and would not make sense. An italian author writting about politics in Florence?

Re-reading it atm, for first time in ~25years, and I’m struck with how much of historical context my kids don’t have that I’d want them to before recommending it to them. I feel I had more of that context when I first read it, but maybe I’m rose tinting my initial reading.

The assumption being that all reading must be done on kindle?

IMHO screens and audio don't count as reading books.

> that doesn't make you or "democracy" better than a non-reader that may be a movie watcher addict

I dunno. There's something to be said for having the focus to sit down and read through a book. It suggests someone is a little more comfortable with their own thoughts and doesn't succumb to constant tech distractions. Which in turn suggests an ability to think more clearly and less emotively about politics.

Every entertainment medium has some level of prestige associated with it mostly based on how old it is, which is the primary reason book reading is venerated. As for the democracy comment, I think the logic there smart people read books and smart people support democracy therefore the more people reading books the more democracy support there is. This is obviously nonsense but it's really popular especially among people who venerate book reading in the abstract like this.

Re: the glorification of reading.

I've thought about this. I agree with you not all reading is equal, and reading social posts (including HN) is the equivalent of junk food, but there's something about reading that sets it apart. I think it's like exercising. Reading engages parts of the mind not exercised otherwise, it requires a more active imagination, it often involves "adult" mechanisms like delayed gratification that are less present in other forms of communication. It's more active and less frictionless than many internet activities, watching TV, etc. That's why it's sometimes a struggle to find a moment to read, and why young people often don't do it: it requires more effort than competing activities (this struggle also applies to physical activity, of course!). And this effort does something positive to your brain, I think. I'd say given two forms of trash entertainment, one trashy literature, and the other a trashy TV show, the former is better for you than the latter.

Just in case anyone wants to debate this, I am NOT saying watching TV is completely frictionless or requires no imagination at all, and of course there's a lot of variance in which specific show or movie. I'm only arguing in relative terms.

i could make an argument for reading in childhood being correlated with iq development[0], because reading is a cognitively involved skill. i could not make an argument for movie watching in childhood being correlated with iq development, because movie watching is a passive activity. if iq development is considered glorious, i propose that reading is more worthy of glorification than movie watching.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187892931...

Yeah that is a reach. Also based in Spain and Im not sure they read as much as they say here with teens at home. I could not find any source information for the numbers anywhere (maybe I missed it)

Spain is as rich as Japan on GDP PPP, richer than Israel and New Zealand.

Readership issues in countries like the USA started way before mass adoption of AI, so also it's not related to AI effects.

I don't think "less rich population" is an accurate description of Spain. It's a high-income developed country. Perhaps you assumed the article was about Spanish speakers worldwide rather than Spain specifically?