Dumbing down doesn’t mean “philosophy versus Call of Duty”. It just means what’s intuitive versus what takes conscious effort. Heck, Call of Duty could demand conscious effort.
you can read “dumber” books, but the internet literally responds to you.
A lot of the internet is literally designed to be addictive. Engagement algorithms are a thing that exists.
Also constant novel content
I see what you did there with the word “novel” 👀
You can’t? I find it to be a world of difference between reading a scientific reports and a youth novel for instance. Or some kind of classical literature compared to a comic book.
You can, but not in the moment. You have to pick up a different book to do that and most people don’t read more than one book concurrently. So you just put the book down and do something else.
Whereas on the internet, you can very quickly flip to comment threads if you get tired of reading articles.
But that would require switching the medium wich again takes conscious effort.
However, I find myself reading 2-3 books for exactly that reason.
You’re right :) what I mean is that the internet demands a couple of keystrokes or a click to change content. A book may require getting up from my chair, or worse, going to a store and waiting a couple of days for them to get the book I want.