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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mlund" data-source="post: 4796276" data-attributes="member: 50304">The only thing that really caught my attention in this threat was the idea that young people have suddenly abandoned non-fiction books in a disturbing fashion.Frankly, I think the traditional non-fiction book isn't all it is cracked up to be. Looking at the terrible quality of screening that goes into academic text books and some peer-reviewed scientific journals I don't think having a 500-page hard-cover on a shelf somewhere is any assurance of quality research or the impartial delivery of facts. Most non-fiction content is still subject to "spin" by the author. Without a narrative and some prejudicial conclusions large works on non-fiction fail to compel readers. They wind up as reference texts.Meanwhile the sorts of narrative non-fiction that make sales for popular consumption represent too much investment by the reader. It prejudices the reader to accept the positions asserted by the author because of the feelings of foolishness that would accompany realizing you just wasted $40 and 600 pages of reading on something akin to what sticks to the bottom of a can of cat litter. The idea of spending that time and money to become less informed is appalling, is it not?The same thing plays out with so many terribly executed courses in history and social sciences at colleges and universities as well. The level of investment and social programming encourages dogmatism rather than critical thought and dissent.Having more compact delivery of details (sans narrative, padded page counts, and expensive prices) cuts down on the level of investment without cutting into the body of factual knowledge. With less resources devoted to a single source or opinion that consumer has more resources available to "get a second opinion" on the topic at hand.All that said, the same sort of single-channel "learning" with poor quality control can occur when people just try to grab everything in sound-bites off of a place like Wikipedia.org too.- Marty Lund</blockquote>

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