How Big Tech Killed Literary Culture(unherd.com)
unherd.com
How Big Tech Killed Literary Culture
https://unherd.com/2026/01/how-big-tech-killed-literary-culture/
4 comments
My issue with reading (nonfiction) books these days is that they’re essentially extended opinion pieces. While I am open to learning a talking head’s perspective (not everyone who gets a book deal is necessarily an expert in their topic), my main gripe is that many writers don’t incorporate a multifaceted point of view on their subject. I don’t expect encyclopedic information, or comprehensive analysis, but I think including choice perspectives across the entire history of a given subject matter is important. Otherwise, I’ll just chat with a bot about the topic, and get text books or journal articles for deeper understanding. Book writers need to do a better job, maybe we need digital books that enable chatting with the author’s book/bot. Free idea for whoever has the bandwidth to do it.
The technology-as-entertainment approach is poison. Reddit is the worst of it; even the tech addicts that see themselves as intellectuals mostly can’t be bothered to read. The (intentional) lack of reading comprehension in order to misconstrue comments and pick arguments would make an observer believe that most Redditors are functionally illiterate. I read a good criticism once that reading a single quality book on any topic, puts one far ahead of the knowledge base of the subreddit dedicated to that topic.
Even HN isn’t great anymore. I frequently change my password to gibberish and abandon my account to the ether, to spend several month stretches completely disconnected from the “social” internet.
Even HN isn’t great anymore. I frequently change my password to gibberish and abandon my account to the ether, to spend several month stretches completely disconnected from the “social” internet.
> Reddit is the worst of it
Really? I find Twitter, YouTube, Instagram to be vastly more toxic. Reddit is fine as long as you stay out of political subs.
> I frequently change my password to gibberish and abandon my account
Couldn't you just ... not log in?
Really? I find Twitter, YouTube, Instagram to be vastly more toxic. Reddit is fine as long as you stay out of political subs.
> I frequently change my password to gibberish and abandon my account
Couldn't you just ... not log in?
I found in the subreddits related to my career and hobbies the discussions were pretty circular, there's a low level of basic knowledge but as soon as you rise above that and start dealing with nuance, the average user can't handle it. It was different 10-15 years ago, but the modern /r/[inserthobby] Redditor seems to have exclusively educated themselves via Reddit content.
X and Instagram are login-walled, I don't have accounts there and can't see any content. I don't really read comments on YouTube, I check like the top 3 to see if anybody has pointed out something major the video got wrong or glossed over. As soon as I see the teenager-level comments with some silly meme or typing out an event that happened in the video word-for-word I close the tab.
>Couldn't you just ... not log in?
Sure, I guess, but I like the ethereality of my approach.
X and Instagram are login-walled, I don't have accounts there and can't see any content. I don't really read comments on YouTube, I check like the top 3 to see if anybody has pointed out something major the video got wrong or glossed over. As soon as I see the teenager-level comments with some silly meme or typing out an event that happened in the video word-for-word I close the tab.
>Couldn't you just ... not log in?
Sure, I guess, but I like the ethereality of my approach.