# Do non-readers really see reading as the same as studying? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 14, 2020, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418 "2020-01-14T18:01:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/21 "2020-01-15T02:03:32Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > Am I unusual in that I “study” for pleasure? The subject has to interest me, of course, but it’s one of my favorite hobbies. I’ll read multiple books exploring the subject from different perspectives ( usually 6-12 books per subject ) and I’ll also search for shorter articles to fill in gaps or answer questions that come up. Then sometimes I’ll write a paper or two exploring different angles of the subject - no one sees these but me usually, but it’s a good way for me to organize my thoughts. And if the subject ever comes up on the SDMB, I may pull up excerpts and work them into my posts. > > If the subject is interesting, I love to to study. I do the same thing, and I don’t consider it studying because no one is testing me on it. Not that I minded studying when I was in school. I’m not as ambitious as you, I don’t write papers. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/22 "2020-01-15T02:23:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I wonder about their early reading life. Educational attainment is correlated to the number of books in your home as you grew up. [Cite.](https://psmag.com/social-justice/books-home-strongly-linked-academic-achievement-82144) Worked for my kids. Worked for me and my wife, who both grew up with lots of books. Works from my grandson who is 3 1/2 and goes to sleep with books in his bed. > Starting at high school is probably too late. Yep. I also did some polling and it seemed to confirm the problem is worse for boys, as the leisure reading materials available in schools K-8 are extremely biased towards girls’ tastes (almost certainly due to the teachers being almost all women!). ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/23 "2020-01-15T02:40:06Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > **Ann Hedonia** , if I may ask. Do you ever read fiction? Do you ever dive into a trashy romance novel, mystery, or fantasy? If you read 52 books in a year but none of them “taught” you anything new, would you consider that year wasted? I love reading fiction and I find time to read a lot of it. I like all sorts of fiction, trashy and otherwise and I certainly don’t feel it’s a waste of time. I’ve actually had people tell me that I’m wasting my time if I’m reading something light, like a Jackie Collins novel and I tell them that it’s pleasure reading, like watching a trashy movie, And there is actually a lot of factual information imparted inside of some fictional novels and I’ve learned a lot if stuff that way. Sometimes something I read inside a novel will send me off on a research/study tangent. I’ve always read a lot, especially since I recently retired. It’s always come easy to me. And I do go through moods, sometimes I can’t concentrate on fiction and end up putting it down to study up on the Opioid Crisis or North Korea. And sometimes I don’t want to do anything more than chill with the latest Steven King or Tim Dorsey novel. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/24 "2020-01-15T04:33:28Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > This is a new one. Not really. Cite: For instance, _Waverley_ by Sir Walter Scott (1814): > [@](#): > > Sir Everard had never been himself a student, and, like his sister Miss Rachel Waverley, he held the common doctrine, that idleness is incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye is in itself a useful and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas or doctrines they may happen to convey. With a desire of amusement, therefore, which better discipline might soon have converted into a thirst for knowledge, young Waverley drove through the sea of books, like a vessel without a pilot or a rudder. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/25 "2020-01-15T04:42:25Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > I also did some polling and it seemed to confirm the problem is worse for boys, as the leisure reading materials available in schools K-8 are extremely biased towards girls’ tastes (almost certainly due to the teachers being almost all women!). This seems highly exaggerated (except for the part about elementary school teachers being all women, which is definitely true in the US). Yes, girls tend to read a lot more than boys do, but [there are a lot of reasons for that](https://www.readingrockets.org/article/boys-and-books), and a tendency to “overrepresent” “girly” subjects in school reading materials is only one of them. (There’s also the problem that boys are socially conditioned to reject anything “girly” as inferior and unsuitable, and resist taking interest in or identifying with female characters, whereas girls are conditioned to accept “boyish” things as the norm and learn to identify with male characters.) ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/26 "2020-01-15T06:45:42Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > So, I was texting with a high school friend of mine and telling him that I set a goal to read 52 books this year, but I hope I’ve blown through that by July 4. I’ve done a huge amount of reading in my life, but this kind of goal seems to me to be wrongheaded. It implies that quantity is better than quality. - If I read _War and Peace_, slowly and with enjoyment, does this count for less than reading three generic detective stories? - If I read a complex non-fiction book about science or philosophy or history, does this have the same value as ‘10 ways to improve your management style’? - If I get halfway through a book and decide it’s bad and not worth reading, do I have to force myself to finish it in order to reach some artificial goal of number of books completed? This is a distortion of the value of reading. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/27 "2020-01-15T06:59:56Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Not really. Cite: For instance, _Waverley_ by Sir Walter Scott (1814): _Waverley_ is a seriously underrated novel today. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/28 "2020-01-15T07:42:57Z")
Some people have trouble keeping track of who all the players are. And oftentimes find themselves flipping backwards through the book to remind themselves who “John” is and how he relates to the story. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/29 "2020-01-15T08:48:04Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > My sister’s first husband was an engineer, and a damned smart one. I was gobsmacked when I walked into their home and discovered they did not have a single book that wasn’t related to engineering. He thought in terms of numbers, not words. My late husband was like that - he was an engineer and he did not read for pleasure (he did have an extensive collection of videos, though). Nothing wrong with his reading, he read just fine at a high level, he just didn’t enjoy it. I figured out that for him “reading for pleasure” was like me “doing math for pleasure” and stopped worrying about it. Other people, though, seemed aghast that such an intelligent man didn’t like reading. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/30 "2020-01-15T09:02:44Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > Some people have trouble keeping track of who all the players are. And oftentimes find themselves flipping backwards through the book to remind themselves who “John” is and how he relates to the story. I’m not sure if you are talking about _Waverley_ here. If so, the problem for modern readers is not the number of characters (there are actually very few), but the historical background. _Waverley_ was a bestseller in its time, and highly regarded throughout the 19th century. But it’s almost unread today because Scott assumes that the reader has a certain amount of familiarity with the time in which it is set, 1745. In the 19th century, his assumption was correct and no explanations were needed, but today very few people know anything about the history of that time. Scott refers without any explanation whatever to the Duke of Cumberland, the Chevalier St. George, Prince Frederick, the Covenanters, the Penal Laws, Jacobites, Whigs, the 1715 uprising, Prince Charles Edward’s grandfather, etc. He takes it for granted that the reader knows what he is talking about. He assumes the reader will know which political party the Duke of Argyll belonged to. He doesn’t think it’s necessary to explain why Edward Waverley, a Hanoverian officer, is highly disconcerted by a toast at dinner celebrating the death of King William, so that he wonders if he is obliged to stand up and demand an apology. And so forth throughout the book. All this makes it difficult for a modern reader to follow what’s happening in the novel without a good introduction giving the history of the period, and many footnotes. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/31 "2020-01-15T11:21:32Z")
I read during all of my breaks on the job. An electrician I was working with during a building remodel told me one lunch break that he thought reading was a waste of time. Later, he was complaining that he was having difficulty passing the written portion of his jpourneyman licensing test. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/32 "2020-01-15T12:03:37Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I figured out that for him “reading for pleasure” was like me “doing math for pleasure” and stopped worrying about it. Other people, though, seemed aghast that such an intelligent man didn’t like reading. One of my college roommates did math for pleasure. And we were all hippie arts major types, in BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) programs that didn’t even have a math requirement. She would grab all these advanced calculus courses as her electives - instead of the bogus classes like Rocks for Jocks (geology) or Modern Courtship ( where you basically got college credit for talking about what (or who) you did over the weekend) that the rest of us chose as electives because she loved math. Modern Courtship. I can’t believe my parents paid money for some of these classes. > [@LH75](#): > > I read during all of my breaks on the job. An electrician I was working with during a building remodel told me one lunch break that he thought reading was a waste of time. Later, he was complaining that he was having difficulty passing the written portion of his jpourneyman licensing test. I used to work in construction, setting up home automation products. One quirk of the job was that you frequently had to upload large files to your systems. The uploads were usually 10-15 minutes but they could sometimes take two or three times as long, depending on the product and the size of the job. And since the system and your computer was locked up during the transfers, you could do absolutely nothing else while this was happening. And some days you had a lot of uploads. So I would pull out my book or, in later years, my Kindle, and read. Everyone else on the construction site would be busily painting and installing cabinets and generally running around crazy, and I’d be sitting in a corner reading. For long stretches of time. Then I’d get up, go push a few buttons to test my programming, make some adjustments, hit the upload button, and settle back in with my book. Those days were my favorite part of my job, everyone was so jealous. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/33 "2020-01-15T13:44:35Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think it’s a combination of trouble with the actual mechanics of reading for most people- reading and comprehending is literally work for them, and as such, whatever pleasure they may wring from a book is outweighed by the pain of actually reading and comprehending it. If reading individual words and sentences takes concentration, how tough must it be to do that AND keep the plot and characters front and center while you do so. I can totally see how someone who isn’t a strong reader (i.e. the mechanical act of reading isn’t near effortless), wouldn’t derive a lot of pleasure out of reading for its own sake. I suspect you’re right: there’s a lot of truth to this. But, when you say “the mechanical act of reading” I think of the skill of translating words on a page or screen into words in one’s head—the kind of thing you don’t have to do if you’re listening to an audio version of a book. But that’s only one of the possible barriers to experiencing and appreciating reading. I’ve learned from threads here at the SDMB that some people get visual images of the scenes described in a work of fiction when they read; others don’t. Some readers “hear” the words in their head as they read; others don’t. Some people may have other issues with certain types of writing, like keeping track of a large cast of characters and their relationships with one another, or grasping the vocabulary and writing style of an eighteenth-century novel. Those are some reasons why some people may get more out of reading (certain kinds of things, at least) than others do. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/34 "2020-01-15T14:49:43Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I suspect you’re right: there’s a lot of truth to this. But, when you say “the mechanical act of reading” I think of the skill of translating words on a page or screen into words in one’s head—the kind of thing you don’t have to do if you’re listening to an audio version of a book. But that’s only one of the possible barriers to experiencing and appreciating reading. > > I’ve learned from threads here at the SDMB that some people get visual images of the scenes described in a work of fiction when they read; others don’t. Some readers “hear” the words in their head as they read; others don’t. Some people may have other issues with certain types of writing, like keeping track of a large cast of characters and their relationships with one another, or grasping the vocabulary and writing style of an eighteenth-century novel. > > Those are some reasons why some people may get more out of reading (certain kinds of things, at least) than others do. I wonder if there’s also a cultural bias against it in some socioeconomic groups? I mean, in my mostly grad-school educated world, NOT being a reader is considered way stranger than being a particularly avid or voracious one. But I suspect that’s far different in less educated and more working class groups. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/35 "2020-01-15T14:57:03Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’ve learned from threads here at the SDMB that some people get visual images of the scenes described in a work of fiction when they read; others don’t. Someone mentioned a curved balustrade the other day, and I flashed back to a memory of a house I’d been in. But I couldn’t remember whose it was. I could remember the living room and the kitchen, and I did a mental walk-through. But who had lived there? After days of wondering, I realized it was from a book I’d read years before. Apparently, I make “visual images of the scenes described in a work of fiction”… unsettlingly detailed ones. I’ve taught older adults to read, and back when I went through training they warned us: “Your students will never get lost in a book they way a lifetime reader can.” Saddest thing I’ve ever heard. One old guy just wanted to be able to get to where he could read a recipe. He was beaming the day he brought us all homemade brownies. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/36 "2020-01-15T15:27:55Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > I’m not sure if you are talking about _Waverley_ here. If so, the problem for modern readers is not the number of characters (there are actually very few), but the historical background. I wasn’t talking about any book in particular. I was more or less saying people who have lousy short term memory retention have problems remembering everything. ST memory retention isn’t a problem when you’re watching a 2hr movie. But trying to remember some obscure but relevant thing you read two or thee chapters ago can have you slipping backwards through the book. I have this problem and it’s so frustrating! ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/37 "2020-01-15T15:46:32Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I wonder if there’s also a cultural bias against it in some socioeconomic groups? I mean, in my mostly grad-school educated world, NOT being a reader is considered way stranger than being a particularly avid or voracious one. But I suspect that’s far different in less educated and more working class groups. Yes, I believe there is. In the rural working class community of my youth (in the sixties), it was far from unusual to find people who were puzzled by those who liked to read or who wanted to pursue higher education in general. It’s an attitude that’s mostly disappeared but not entirely so. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/38 "2020-01-15T18:14:06Z")
Can I say that I’m just amazed… to the point of incomprehension, how grown adults can barely read well enough to read a recipe? Or that they can read well enough to read a recipe, but that a lot of newspaper articles might be above them? I mean to me, reading is one of those things like eating, breathing and walking, that I just DO without thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/39 "2020-01-15T19:12:10Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > So, is this something common among those who never res for pleasure? Or is he just making excuses because he’d rather play video games but secretly feels envious? I’ve heard it said that some people do not like to cook, and in fact will order out six times a week, and feast upon breakfast cereal and/or peanut butter & jelly sandwiches on the seventh. Their kitchen cabinets and appliances are repurposed for general household storage. As someone who finds a great deal of joy in cooking, would I be right to suspect their disdain of the practice is really a mask for their shameful preference of other baser activities? Seems easier to just accept some people don’t get it when it comes to cooking, and so they do other stuff that works for them. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418/40 "2020-01-15T19:42:30Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think it’s a combination of trouble with the actual mechanics of reading for most people- reading and comprehending is literally work for them, and as such, whatever pleasure they may wring from a book is outweighed by the pain of actually reading and comprehending it. If reading individual words and sentences takes concentration, how tough must it be to do that AND keep the plot and characters front and center while you do so. I can totally see how someone who isn’t a strong reader (i.e. the mechanical act of reading isn’t near effortless), wouldn’t derive a lot of pleasure out of reading for its own sake. That’s me. I usually say “I can’t read” but that makes me sound illiterate. My problem is that my ADD kicks in and I read really, really slow. Also, I don’t mean like 'haha, I have add…hey, there’s something shiny", what I mean is I can read 5 or 10 pages from a book and I, literally, couldn’t tell you anything about it. Not the names, not what happened, hell, it could’ve been a college text book. My eyes scan the page, I’m ‘reading’ the words on it, but after I get more than a sentence in I’m day dreaming while still going through the motions. It made any reading intensive school courses (be it history or lit or anything else that involved the teacher saying ‘read pages xx-xxx tonight’), a real nightmare, since everything I read had to be read multiple times. It’s annoying reading 10 pages and then having to do it again because you have no idea what you read. Reading in school was such a chore for me that I really never got into it. Every couple of years I’ll read a few books but they have to hold my attention really well (ie Gone Girl) and they still take me forever. I tend to read about 10-15 pages a night. A book typically takes me about a month to read. To all the people that suggest that reading is no ‘harder’ than watching TV, I don’t know what to tell you. For me, personally, reading is work while TV just gets absorbed. It may also help that if I’m watching TV, I’m usually playing with my laptop or phone as well. Odd as it sounds, the distraction of the device actually helps me focus more\*. Lastly, any questions people have about this type of thing, I can give my experience, I can’t explain the reasoning. \*Back in college when of my profs called me out (privately) about me doing calc homework during his lectures (and I sat in the front row). I explained to him that if I’m doing math homework I’m still listening to him and anytime he’s asking the class a question, he’s welcome to direct it at me if I don’t already have my hand up. However, I also told him, if he sees me just watching him, my eyes following him as he paces back and forth while talking, I’m likely not listening, I’m off in my own world. He was fine with that, I did well in both of his classes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-non-readers-really-see-reading-as-the-same-as-studying/846418.md?page=3)