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oursinCouple of pieces in today's Guardian and okay, journalism, and soundbitey, and clickbait, etc etc etc
Be more vulnerable!’ What women can teach men about friendship – and what they can learn from men
I was thinking this didn't particularly reflect the way I communicate with my lady-friends, which tends to lean more to subjects of common interest/gossip/etc rather than being deep and emotional and sharing vulnerability, which may, I contend, have to do with the fact that, hello, we are no longer young things?
And what is this thing this thing is about relationship hierarchies? We are no longer in high school, hello, if we ever were.
On the 'sharing' thing sometimes this is just not that reciprocal: looking back at Q and painful friendship rupture, and her claim that I had been having a lovely life and just bitching about certain work things while her marriage had been breaking up, my recollection is that I had been doing a lot of listening to her marital woes and not actually mentioning death and illness in my family, partner being unemployed, etc? (Okay, if the world can be divided into Ancient Mariners and Wedding Guests, I am the latter.)
We observe that the author of that column has a book to promote.
And on books and reading and the current PANIC: How to put your phone down and get back into habit of reading books.
Query: has there ever been a time when more than half the population regularly read for pleasure? I am always dubious of stats like that and wonder if Mass Observation ever undertook surveys into reading among the populace.
I am also going to distrust any WO WO UNTO THE PRESENT GENERAYSHUN emanating from a quote by one superannuated Oxford prof.
Plus, presumably dealing with a population of students with a lot of other things on their mind, far more than I had in the halcyon days when I was a student with a full grant and a remarkable, it now seems, lack of pressure compared to These Here Dayz.
I also point out the contradiction between 'read physical books! take notes!' and 'reading should not be a chore'.
But I do realise as someone who is more somebody who counts as a reading addict than one of these people that has to have pushers inculcating the habit, I may be something of an outlier here?
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Date: 2024-10-12 05:44 pm (UTC)Telling me what "I" ought to do, as someone they've imagined, is much more their thing.
Also telling me all kinds of "facts" about myself that are contradicted by my own self observation.
For the record, I too am a defective woman, not reliably living
updown to whatever stereotype is current.With regard to phones having interrupted a golden age of reading - have the experts writing this article never heard of television, which used to be the media-announced horror destroying everyone's reading habits, as well as interfering with
propernormal social behaviour, particularly damaging to children?no subject
Date: 2024-10-12 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-12 06:59 pm (UTC)Too bad my grandmother isn't still around - she'd have known what scary stories were being peddled long before I was born. (She'd be 122 years old if she were still alive.)
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Date: 2024-10-13 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-12 07:09 pm (UTC)Time's whirligigs
Date: 2024-10-13 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-13 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-13 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-13 12:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-14 12:14 am (UTC)Benefits of seeing An Librarian! (Specifically, the librarian who gets called when there's a Tech Issue.)
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Date: 2024-10-15 05:20 pm (UTC)That said, I have a robust online friendship group, or so I believe, even though I'm sure such would be dismissed as not Real True Friendships, even if it does contain such things as emotional disclosure and support of others. And I do, with precautions, try to engage in some of those events where I might strike up passing conversations or otherwise be a social creature in an environment where it's entirely likely that there are other people of similar interest and conversational topic.
(Of course, I have also been repeatedly accused of being a woman, or otherwise failing to meet the expectations of others around a person of my body type, to which I can channel my inner Janet and say "not a man, not a girl.")
As for the tips of reading, I must laugh, for such things always seem to be focused on "woes, none pick up the wonderful past-time of reading books in print, therefore our collective literacy must surely be in free fall without anything to cushion it but the hard splat at the end." If one bothers to ask what the supposed phone addicts are reading, one is usually shown articles, posts, newsletters, and then possibly regaled with podcasts that perform a serial fiction, or are persons engaging in collective storytelling together, or perhaps getting a glimpse at someone's electronic reading, where having a phone or tablet out and reading is what works best for them and allows them to have the desired material on hand. OR, perhaps, if one is very lucky and well-trusted, someone showcases their AO3 reading list and all of the additional stories consumed outside of the official ones presented. It seems to be more that those who give woez about the lack of reading are commenting about how it seems like there is so little free time available for anyone to fully indulge all of the things they should enjoy doing, and that those people are making prioritization decisions about media consumption that they frown upon, and believe that others should conform to their expectations and prioritizations, rather than recognizing the individual and seeing what there is as a possibility for adding more reading into someone's life, rather than demanding they exchange an enjoyable thing for reading.