The tweet opened up the floodgates for discourse about literary consumption. We are at once in a year in which “performative reading” became noticeable and eading performance rates in US schools declined.
Sruti Islam is the co-host and producer of Weird Era, a literary podcast and magazine. Islam believes that contemporary literature faces a crisis of passive intake—that is, consuming a massive volume of information very quickly, often without time to process it.
“I can see how the idea of anti-intellectual is coming to fruition when we think about it in that way of quality versus quantity,” Islam says. “I do wonder, though, if all the books that are being consumed are necessarily challenging, is maybe the word I’ll use.”
Islam says the current trend of high-volume, “light” consumption of content, whether text or video, highlights a wider issue.
“There's a difference between a 30-minute sitcom that you can breeze through versus like a two-hour-long film to really take your time with,” she explains. “If you're reading 30 books a year and some of it is challenging and some of it is not—I can see how the idea of anti-intellectualism is coming to fruition.”
The rise of so-called “easy” reads is tied to more than a supposed intellectual decline. Islam suggests people are reading for the intimacy they struggle to find in their daily lives.
“People are dismissing things like Smut or YA, and I think there’s nothing wrong with reading that kind of literature. I think it actually speaks to something much more moral about our society. There is such a lack of sexual adventure in the real, offline world that people are needing to find it in books.”
The recent popularity of series like Game Changers—the inspiration behind the hit show of the same name—is a prime example of “comfort-first” consumption. Islam sees this play out at the bookstore counter.
“It's frustrating to face a customer who is essentially saying, ‘I don’t want to be intellectually stimulated; I just want to drown myself in this fantasy,’” she admits. “I think there is heavier, more difficult reading that would benefit everyone.”
And then there’s the discussion of digital reading formats like audiobooks and e-books.
“I don't think audiobooks count as real reading; to me, that’s a podcast,” Islam says of the popular format. “Every medium has its own pros and cons—I love radio, and I think radio can only do what radio does—but reading can only do what reading does. When you read, your brain is forced to imagine and interpret the emphasis on text, pausing at certain paragraphs or sentences. These are things you can only do when you’re quite literally using your brain to read, and I think you miss out on that in an audiobook experience. I get a little peeved when people say, 'I’ve read 100 books this year,' when they actually listened to 100 hours of audio. I don’t think that’s the same as saying you read 100 books."
Social reviewing platforms like Goodreads have also sped up the rate at which people read, which speaks to the idea of reading too much. While Islam appreciates how the site may motivate people to read more, her concern lies in how quickly they critique the works they engage with.
“I’m not someone who feels the need to review everything instantly, and I feel like Goodreads kind of [encourages] that.”
