I'd recommend Tim Urban's (of waitbutwhy fame) new book, What's Our Problem. It's a deep dive on a lot of these things in the last decade and how we ended up where we are now.
There are a few of those discussions going on in artist's circles these days. I imagine they'll get sued for doing this, but it'll probably take a very famous artist or a hell of a class action suit to make it happen.
I'd say a whole lot has changed in drawing styles. There just happened to be a fairly accessible style of drawing that these sort of books teach which has stuck around well. It can be a nice intro to art and at least starts you thinking about how to construct your drawings. But yeah, once you move past that it's fairly impressive how much things have changed/evolved in drawing.
Good luck! Art is a hell of a fun pursuit and I hope you have a good time with it. The long periods of boredom and frustration lead to those moments of bliss as you make things you're proud of and you start to understand what you're doing.
There are a lot of decent books out there and obviously a million good online resources, but I think if you're looking for a starting point, I'd suggest you look for classes at a local community college or atelier. Avoid anything that looks too "artsy". Self expression is great but find somebody who will teach you how to draw. An atelier would be an ideal option as they tend to have very good technical instruction and you can avoid forming bad habits early on.
It's very doable to do it yourself, but having somebody there to show you when you're screwing up is immensely valuable. Once you've got the basics and know how to learn then you can take more time to study on your own.
I've found you can often mute those screens if you press one of the buttons beside the screen. Apparently it's different depending on the machine, so just mash them all I guess.
If you want some waterproof notebooks that aren't quite as impractical as those Expedition ones (they always smeared for me too), you might try Rite in the Rain. Had a great time using those over the years.
I'd somewhat change #1 to "starting and starting often." I see far, far too many art students fall into the trap of wasting hours finishing work when they'd be better off starting more pieces.
Yep, it is. I was trying to take full ownership of what I was like and overplayed what I had done in an effort to not seem like I was downplaying it. It's dumb in hindsight but there it is.