Dumbing down doesn’t mean “philosophy versus Call of Duty”. It just means what’s intuitive versus what takes conscious effort. Heck, Call of Duty could demand conscious effort.
You can’t? I find it to be a world of difference between reading a scientific reports and a youth novel for instance. Or some kind of classical literature compared to a comic book.
You can, but not in the moment. You have to pick up a different book to do that and most people don’t read more than one book concurrently. So you just put the book down and do something else.
Whereas on the internet, you can very quickly flip to comment threads if you get tired of reading articles.
You can do that when you’re reading with a tablet, eReader or Phone
You are figuratively reading multiple “books” already. You don’t say “Well, no Gundam message boards for a few days because I want to go all in on this celebrity gossip blog”.
And same with books. I won’t read two large doorstopper novels at the same time. But I will generally have some pulp sci-fi or fantasy and then a non-fiction or technical book on my kindle. Which one I read depends on my mood. And it is a very rare occasion that I get confused if Nathan Garrett is about to Goku a bunch of white supremacists in a cabin or if he is about to discover a new kind of polymer.
But that would require switching the medium wich again takes conscious effort.
However, I find myself reading 2-3 books for exactly that reason.
Yepp, so as you say this is a question of medium, not reading.
You’re right :) what I mean is that the internet demands a couple of keystrokes or a click to change content. A book may require getting up from my chair, or worse, going to a store and waiting a couple of days for them to get the book I want.
A lot of the internet is literally designed to be addictive. Engagement algorithms are a thing that exists.
you can read “dumber” books, but rhe internet literally responds to you.
Also constant novel content
I see what you did there with the word “novel” 👀
There is also the “unexpected” or “unknown” and social character of the internet.