Workarounds to reading a book cover-to-cover have existed for decades, but generative AI takes it to new heights. dem10/E+ via Getty Images AI is making reading books feel obsolete – and students have a lot to lose
Workarounds to reading a book cover-to-cover have existed for decades, but generative AI takes it to new heights. dem10/E+ via Getty Images
AI is making reading books feel obsolete – and students have a lot to lose
Naomi S. Baron, American University A perfect storm is brewing for reading. AI arrived as both kids and adults were already spending less time reading books than they did in the not-so-distant past. As a linguist, I study how technology influences the ways people read, write and think. This includes the impact of artificial intelligence, which is dramatically changing how people engage with books or other kinds of writing, whether it’s assigned, used for research or read for pleasure. I worry that AI is accelerating an ongoing shift in the value people place on reading as a human endeavor.
Everything but the book
AI’s writing skillshave gottenplenty of attention. But researchers and teachers are only now starting to talk about AI’s ability to “read” massive datasets before churning out summaries, analyses or comparisons of books, essays and articles. Need to read a novel for class? These days, you might get by with skimming through an AI-generated summary of the plot and key themes. This kind of possibility, which undermines people’s motivation to read on their own, prompted me to write a book about the pros and cons of letting AI do the reading for you. Palming off the work of summarizing or analyzing texts is hardly new. CliffsNotes dates back to the late 1950s. Centuries earlier, the Royal Society of London began producing summaries of the scientific papers that appeared in its voluminous “Philosophical Transactions.” By the mid-20th century, abstracts had become ubiquitous in scholarly articles. Potential readers could now peruse the abstract before deciding whether to tackle the piece in its entirety. The internet opened up an array of additional reading shortcuts. For instance, Blinkist is an app-based, subscription service that condenses mostly nonfiction books into roughly 15-minute summaries – called “Blinks” – that are available in both audio and text. But generative AI elevates such workarounds to new heights. AI-driven apps like BooksAI provide the kinds of summaries and analyses that used to be crafted by humans. Meanwhile, BookAI.chat invites you to “chat” with books. In neither case do you need to read the books yourself. If you’re a student asked to compare Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” with J. D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” as coming-of-age novels, CliffsNotes only gets you so far. Sure, you can read summaries of each book, but you still must do the comparison yourself. With general large language models or specialized tools such as Google NotebookLM, AI handles both the “reading” and the comparing, even generating smart questions to pose in class. The downside is that you lose out on a critical benefit of reading a coming-of-age novel: the personal growth that comes from vicariously experiencing the protagonist’s struggles. In the world of academic research, AI offerings like SciSpace, Elicit and Consensus combine the power of search engines and large language models. They locate relevant articles and then summarize and synthesize them, slashing the hours needed to conduct literature reviews. On its website, Elsevier’s ScienceDirect AI gloats: “Goodbye wasted reading time. Hello relevance.” Maybe. Excluded from the process is judging for yourself what counts as relevant and making your own connections between ideas.
Reader unfriendly?
Even before generative AI went mainstream, fewer people were reading books, whether for pleasure or for class. In the U.S., the National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that the number of fourth graders who read for fun almost every day slipped from 53% in 1984 to 39% in 2022. For eighth graders? From 35% in 1984 to 14% in 2023. The U.K.’s 2024 National Literacy Trust survey revealed that only one in three 8- to 18-year-olds said they enjoyed reading in their spare time, a drop of almost 9 percentage points from just the previous year. Similar trends exist among older students. In a 2018 survey of 600,000 15-year-olds across 79 countries, 49% reported reading only when they had to. That’s up from 36% about a decade earlier. The picture for college students is no brighter. A spateof recent articles has chronicled how little reading is happening in American higher education. My work with literacy researcher Anne Mangen found that faculty are reducing the amount of reading they assign, often in response to students refusing to do it. Emblematic of the problem is a troubling observation from cultural commentator David Brooks:
“I once asked a group of students on their final day at their prestigious university what book had changed their life over the previous four years. A long, awkward silence followed. Finally a student said: ‘You have to understand, we don’t read like that. We only sample enough of each book to get through the class.’”
Now adults: According to YouGov, just 54% of Americans read at least one book in 2023. The situation in South Korea is even bleaker, where only 43% of adults said they had read at least one book in 2023, down from almost 87% in 1994. In the U.K., The Reading Agency observed declines in adult reading and hinted at one reason why. In 2024, 35% of adults identified as lapsed readers – they once read regularly, but no longer do. Of those lapsed readers, 26% indicated they had stopped reading because of time spent on social media. The phrase “lapsed reader” might now apply to anyone who deprioritizes reading, whether it’s due to lack of interest, devoting more time to social media or letting AI do the reading for you.
All that’s lost, missed and forgotten
Why read in the first place? The justifications are endless, as are the streams of books and websites making the case. There’s reading for pleasure, stress reduction, learning and personal development. You can find correlations between reading and brain growth in children, happiness, longevity and slowing cognitive decline. This last issue is particularly relevant as people increasingly let AI do cognitive work on their behalf, a process known as cognitive offloading. Research has emergedshowing the extent to which people are engaging in cognitive offloading when they use AI. The evidence reveals that the more users rely on AI to perform work for them, the less they see themselves as drawing upon their own thinking capacities. A study employing EEG measurements found different brain connectivity patterns when participants enlisted AI to help them write an essay than when writing it on their own. It’s too soon to know what effects AI might have on our long-term ability to think for ourselves. What’s more, the research so far has largely focused on writing tasks or general use of AI tools, not on reading. But if we lose practice in reading and analyzing and formulating our own interpretations, those skills are at risk of weakening. Cognitive skills aren’t the only thing at stake when we rely too heavily on AI to do our reading work for us. We also miss out on so much of what makes reading enjoyable – encountering a moving piece of dialogue, relishing a turn of phrase, connecting with a character. AI’s lure of efficiency is tantalizing. But it risks undermining the benefits of literacy. Naomi S. Baron, Professor Emerita of Linguistics, American University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Why Downtown Los Angeles Feels Small Compared to Other Cities
Downtown Los Angeles often feels “small” compared to other U.S. cities, but that’s only part of the story. With some of the tallest buildings west of the Mississippi and skyline clusters spread across the region, LA’s downtown reflects the city’s unique polycentric identity—one that, if combined, could form a true mega downtown.
Panorama of Los Angeles from Mount Hollywood – California, United States
When people think of major American cities, they often imagine a bustling, concentrated downtown core filled with skyscrapers. New York has Manhattan, Chicago has the Loop, San Francisco has its Financial District. Los Angeles, by contrast, often leaves visitors surprised: “Is this really downtown?”
The answer is yes—and no.
Downtown LA in Context
Compared to other major cities, Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is relatively small as a central business district. For much of the 20th century, strict height restrictions capped most buildings under 150 feet, while cities like Chicago and New York were erecting early skyscrapers. LA’s skyline didn’t really begin to climb until the late 1960s.
But history alone doesn’t explain why DTLA feels different. The real story lies in how Los Angeles grew: not as one unified city center, but as a collection of many hubs.
Downtown Los Angeles
A Polycentric City
Los Angeles is famously decentralized. Hollywood developed around the film industry. Century City rose on former studio land as a business hub. Burbank became a studio and aerospace center. Long Beach grew around the port. The Wilshire Corridor filled with office towers and condos.
Unlike other cities where downtown is the place for work, culture, and finance, Los Angeles spread its energy outward. Freeways and car culture made it easy for businesses and residents to operate outside of downtown. The result is a polycentric metropolis, with multiple “downtowns” rather than one dominant core.
A Resident’s Perspective
As someone who lived in Los Angeles for 28 years, I see DTLA differently. While some outsiders describe it as “small,” the reality is that Downtown Los Angeles is still significant. It has some of the tallest buildings west of the Mississippi River, including the Wilshire Grand Center and the U.S. Bank Tower. Over the last two decades, adaptive reuse projects have transformed old office buildings into lofts, while developments like LA Live, Crypto.com Arena, and the Broad Museum have revitalized the area.
In other words, DTLA is large enough—it just plays a different role than downtowns in other American cities.
View of Westwood, Century City, Beverly Hills, and the Wilshire Corridor.
The “Mega Downtown” That Isn’t
A friend once put it to me with a bit of imagination: “If you could magically pick up all of LA’s skyline clusters—Downtown, Century City, Hollywood, the Wilshire Corridor—and drop them together in one spot, you’d have a mega downtown.”
He’s right. Los Angeles doesn’t lack tall buildings or urban energy—it just spreads them out over a vast area, reflecting the city’s unique history, geography, and culture.
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A Downtown That Fits Its City
So, is Downtown LA “small”? Compared to Manhattan or Chicago’s Loop, yes. But judged on its own terms, DTLA is a vibrant hub within a much larger, decentralized metropolis. It’s a downtown that reflects Los Angeles itself: sprawling, diverse, and impossible to fit neatly into the mold of other American cities.
Dive into “The Knowledge,” where curiosity meets clarity. This playlist, in collaboration with STMDailyNews.com, is designed for viewers who value historical accuracy and insightful learning. Our short videos, ranging from 30 seconds to a minute and a half, make complex subjects easy to grasp in no time. Covering everything from historical events to contemporary processes and entertainment, “The Knowledge” bridges the past with the present. In a world where information is abundant yet often misused, our series aims to guide you through the noise, preserving vital knowledge and truths that shape our lives today. Perfect for curious minds eager to discover the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of everything around us. Subscribe and join in as we explore the facts that matter. https://stmdailynews.com/the-knowledge/
Century City: From Hollywood Backlot to Business Hub
Century City, originally part of 20th Century Fox’s backlot, transformed into a prominent business district in Los Angeles during the 1950s amid the decline of cinema. Developer William Zeckendorf envisioned a mixed-use urban center, leading to iconic skyscrapers and establishing the area as a hub for law, finance, and media, blending Hollywood history with modern business.
Before Century City became one of Los Angeles’ premier business districts, it was part of 20th Century Fox’s sprawling backlot, used for filming movies and housing studio operations. By the 1950s, as television rose and movie attendance declined, 20th Century Fox faced financial challenges and decided to sell a portion of its land.
Traffic On 405 Freeway In LA With Century City In The Background
Developer William Zeckendorf envisioned a “city within a city”—a modern, mixed-use urban center with office towers, hotels, and entertainment facilities. Branded Century City, the name paid homage to its studio roots while symbolizing LA’s vision for the future.
The first skyscrapers, including the Gateway West Building, set the tone for the district’s sleek, futuristic skyline. Architects like Welton Becket and Minoru Yamasaki helped shape Century City’s iconic look. Over time, it evolved from Hollywood’s backlot to a corporate and legal hub, attracting law firms, financial institutions, and media companies.
Today, Century City stands as a testament to Los Angeles’ postwar optimism, westward expansion, and multi-centered urban growth—a unique blend of Hollywood history and modern business.
Dive into “The Knowledge,” where curiosity meets clarity. This playlist, in collaboration with STMDailyNews.com, is designed for viewers who value historical accuracy and insightful learning. Our short videos, ranging from 30 seconds to a minute and a half, make complex subjects easy to grasp in no time. Covering everything from historical events to contemporary processes and entertainment, “The Knowledge” bridges the past with the present. In a world where information is abundant yet often misused, our series aims to guide you through the noise, preserving vital knowledge and truths that shape our lives today. Perfect for curious minds eager to discover the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of everything around us. Subscribe and join in as we explore the facts that matter. https://stmdailynews.com/the-knowledge/
Local governments provide proof that polarization is not inevitable
Local politics help mitigate national polarization by focusing on concrete issues like infrastructure and community needs rather than divisive symbolic debates. A survey indicates that local officials experience less partisanship, as interpersonal connections foster recognition of shared interests. This suggests that reducing polarization is possible through collaboration and changes in election laws.
Local officials get to participate in events such as ribbon cuttings, celebrating projects they may have helped make happen. NHLI/Eliot J. Schechter via Getty Images
But things are much less heated at the local level. A survey of more than 1,400 local officials by the Carnegie Corporation and CivicPulse found that local governments are “largely insulated from the harshest effects of polarization.” Communities with fewer than 50,000 residents proved especially resilient to partisan dysfunction.
Why this difference? As a political scientist, I believe that lessons from the local level not only open a window onto how polarization works but also the dynamics and tools that can help reduce it.
Problems are more concrete
Local governments deal with concrete issues – sometimes literally, when it comes to paving roads and fixing potholes. In general, cities and counties handle day-to-day functions, such as garbage pickup, running schools and enforcing zoning rules. Addressing tangible needs keeps local leaders’ attention fixed on specific problems that call out for specific solutions, not lengthy ideological debates.
By contrast, a lot of national political conflict in the U.S. involves symbolic issues, such as debates about identity and values on topics such as race, abortion and transgender rights. These battles are often divisive, even more so than purely ideological disagreements, because they can activate tribal differences and prove more resistant to compromise.When mayors come together, they often find they face common problems in their cities. Gathered here, from left, are Jerry Dyer of Fresno, Calif., John Ewing Jr. of Omaha, Neb., and David Holt of Oklahoma City. AP Photo/Kevin Wolf
Such arguments at the national level, or on social media, can lead to wildly inaccurate stereotypes about people with opposing views. Today’s partisans often perceive their opponents as far more extreme than they actually are, or they may stereotype them – imagining that all Republicans are wealthy, evangelical culture warriors, for instance, or conversely being convinced that all Democrats are radical urban activists. In terms of ideology, the median members of both parties, in fact, look similar.
These kinds of misperceptions can fuel hostility.
Local officials, however, live among the human beings they represent, whose complexity defies caricature. Living and interacting in the same communities leads to greater recognition of shared interests and values, according to the Carnegie/CivicPulse survey.
Meaningful interaction with others, including partisans of the opposing party, reduces prejudice about them. Local government provides a natural space where identities overlap.
People are complicated
In national U.S. politics today, large groups of individuals are divided not only by party but a variety of other factors, including race, religion, geography and social networks. When these differences align with ideology, political disagreement can feel like an existential threat.
Such differences are not always as pronounced at the local level. A neighbor who disagrees about property taxes could be the coach of your child’s soccer team. Your fellow school board member might share your concerns about curriculum but vote differently in presidential elections.
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Mayors can find themselves caught up in national debates, as did Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies in his city. AP Photo/Kevin Wolf
These cross-cutting connections remind us that political opponents are not a monolithic enemy but complex individuals. When people discover they have commonalities outside of politics with others holding opposing views, polarization can decrease significantly.
Finally, most local elections are technically nonpartisan. Keeping party labels off ballots allows voters to judge candidates as individuals and not merely as Republicans or Democrats.
Nevertheless, the relative partisan calm of local governance suggests that polarization is not inevitable. It emerges from specific conditions that can be altered.
Polarization might be reduced by creating more opportunities for cross-partisan collaboration around concrete problems. Philanthropists and even states might invest in local journalism that covers pragmatic governance rather than partisan conflict. More cities and counties could adopt changes in election law that would de-emphasize party labels where they add little information for voters.
Aside from structural changes, individual Americans can strive to recognize that their neighbors are not the cardboard cutouts they might imagine when thinking about “the other side.” Instead, Americans can recognize that even political opponents are navigating similar landscapes of community, personal challenges and time constraints, with often similar desires to see their roads paved and their children well educated.
The conditions shaping our interactions matter enormously. If conditions change, perhaps less partisan rancor will be the result.
The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.
