Reading Books is Outdated

I couldn’t help but notice TileLetter’s article on book recommendations this month. 

This got me thinking: reading books is overrated.

Keep in mind, that I’ve been an avid reader throughout my life. In fact, I’ve read almost all the books that were mentioned in the article.

But reading entire books is an outdated way of consuming the content. Hear me out.

Times Change

Back in the 1950s, there was a boom in service stations.

When you needed to gas up it was an unspoken understanding that the attendant would lift the hood of your car, check your oil, wash your windshield, and inspect your tire pressure.

This was a thing because cars were terribly unreliable back then.

Nowadays, you just need the fuel because your car runs just fine. The attendant is (mostly) a thing of the past.

The problem with books

The same thing has happened with books. All that we need from them is the fuel- the few concepts they are trying to get across. 

But, instead, we get the preface, the longer-than-necessary intro, and don’t forget the conclusion that drags on.

300 pages to learn one or two new concepts? 

Instead of reading an entire book cover-to-cover, we need short bits of information in digestible chunks.

This is how we consume information these days. We strip out the nonsense and make things more efficient.

Making phone calls is replaced with texting. Gone are the formalities and small talk.

Big cable television packages with too many ad breaks are replaced with a la carte choices along with Youtube and Tiktok.

The future of the book 

So what is the solution for non-fiction content?

Yes, you guessed it. Tiktok. We need Tiktok for books. Short bits of text that are easily digested.

It’s time. Can somebody make this happen?