The psychology of reading long books

Anybody have any books/websites that touch on the reason why some people can't seem to read or have the attention span to read long books? Book-phobia.

I notice a lot of people don't read, I want to know why. Anyone have any information?

no idea, but I hear you. I know some people that probably haven't read a book since high school or before that even. I can't imagine that.

OP here,

Some developments: I have a name for what I'm talking about now "Bibliophobia"

interesting.

I too am curious. I have friends who don't read. They aren't people who lack intellect; In fact, most of them are smarter than I. Howver that isn't saying much, I shall admit I'm not a smart person. When I ask why they wont read they simply reply "I just don't have the attention span", yet they will spend 5+ hours playing adventure games such as day of the tentacle, loom, Adventures of monkey Island. Which are not huge reads such as novels, but they do involve a lot of reading.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20081020_TNA22Rosen.pdf

tl;dr

They probably aren't very good readers, or perhaps just aren't in the habit. I was a reader as a kid, then didn't read much for a few years. Now I work in a library, and read up to a book a day. So I don't think it's necessarily that a person who reads very little has a particularly deep reason for it.

Also some people are stupid, uninquisitive philistines.

Different people act differently I guess. I can't imagine sitting through 80% of the movies or TV shows that are out there without feeling bored to death, yet I am rooted to one spot when I read books.

People who avoid books like the plague probably just grew up in a household in which reading was not an activity shared by the family.

>>7
>People who avoid books like the plague probably just grew up in a household in which reading was not an activity shared by the family.
My Mother, Father and I read books a lot. My brother doesn't and he avoids them like the plauge. His reasoning is "I can't read that well because he has Dyslexia. Which I guess is a semi-valid excuse. It just angers me that he wont even try to read. I don't know why it angers me; It just does.

>>8
It angers you because he's a fag who'd rather stew in his own mediocrity than work to improve himself. I wouldn't tolerate this in a family member either.

>>6
>I work in a library, and read up to a book a day

choose one please. maybe you get paid, but i guess you do not work much, if you read one book a day there...

>>10
I read the books at home, silly.

It probably largely depends on the parents and if they encouraged reading, and if they picked up on reading easily as a kid, if reading is seen as a struggle they won't want to read and then it doesn't matter how much the parents push it they won't like it.

In my case books were really important growing up, we would read every single night and we have plenty of books in the house. And I took to reading like a duck to water.

Maybe it is because recreational reading is just a hobby. It is an important and intellectually stimulating hobby, but again, just a hobby. Not everyone enjoys doing the same things as you, so stop acting like a pretentious fuckwit just because you've read a couple books.

>>13
Get out of /book/ if you don't like reading.

>>1
Shouldn't this thread actually be titled The Psychology of ^_Not Reading Long Books?

I interpreted the question at first as why people don't read LONG books. I read long books on occasion, but mostly I read like 3-6 short books a week (by short I mean like 200-300 pages).

As far as why people don't like reading books, I'd say it's because it takes a much longer time than a film, for example. Films take approximately two hours. There aren't many people who read a book in two hours. Most of these people take a while to read also. Whilst a lot of /book/ could probably read one a day or every two days, inexperienced readers probably take a couple of weeks. Video games are a lot different because they involve interactivity.

But, people hate watching subtitled films too. I work in a video store and that really pisses me off when people say something stupid like "I don't like reading films". But then again, I can't understand it much because my film diet consists mostly of Asian and Eastern European films and has so for the last 6 or 7 years. I tend to read these subtitles in a half-second and get back to the picture without missing much at all.

So I guess, my point is that ability dictates most people's phobia of books. Kind of like how people who aren't good at sports like to avoid that.

>>14
I DO like reading, and that's the whole point now isn't it? I like it, others don't. It doesn't make me automatically superior to them for some reason, as most of the people in this thread seem to think.

>>7
Pretty much this. If a person likes to read a lot, or if they like it somewhat and feel that they have the time to do so, they will read long books.

Of course, "free" time for some people may not intersect with "book" time.

Long books feel like a greater effort even though in theory they would be like a collection of serials or a TV series where many subsequent actions follow one another.  Instead, more often the book is dragged out so the plot, if it isn't cut in the middle as part of a series, tends to not show up until the end following pages of clutter.  I appreciated the thin format of young adult books because a plot had to happen in each book, while long books mean you are invested in finishing one long story that may not be as good as a shorter, thinner book.  It might be a thousand pages of mediocrity.  I don't mind if it's good, like Lord of the Rings, with enough detail to carry interest, enough plot progression to go from beginning to middle to end, and enough suspense to keep going.  But some books just want to be long for the sake of being long.  It's like a commitment with someone who might have AIDS.