Why I Stopped Reading Books and Started Reading Articles
A long-time debate
To begin with, I love books. I am one of those people who thinks you could never compare an actual book to an eBook — even if I would be hung by most environmentalists. The experience of reading a book is unmatched. The texture, turning the pages… It is an art and I appreciate art in all forms. Unfortunately, reading for pleasure is not one of my biggest strengths, I hardly ever complete a book. However, for academic research, I have read a few.
For years, we have seen different articles and videos showing how the most successful people in the world have an incredible appetite for reading. Allegedly, they read for several hours every day and document how many books they read per year. Therefore, we feel the need to emulate these habits in some way, glorifying books over everything.
From most people, reading books is considered more valuable than reading articles.
Even if it is an unpopular position, I prefer articles instead of books to obtain knowledge. My main justification is that I like to hear both sides of a story. For me, it is very simple, books give you a limited perspective from the view of the author — although there are exceptions. Articles, on the other hand, allow you to have a range of different perspectives and you can easily develop a well-rounded opinion.
Depth and content
Deciding on reading a book or an article is based on what you hope to achieve. Why do we read and what do we want to achieve? One of the big differences that helps you decide if you need a book or an article is the depth of knowledge you hope to acquire. Would you like an introduction or aim to dive into a topic? In general, articles can give you more diversity in terms of knowledge but books go more in-depth.
This is because of the amount of information found in books whereas articles are much shorter. Oftentimes, it is a question of placing the most essential ideas of a topic with relatively quick conclusions. This does not mean that they are hasty or of poor quality. There are people — researchers and not — who take a lot of time and reflection to write concise articles. We all know that quantity does not always mean quality.
It also depends on the topic. I ran into a blog from Shanu Mathew who wrote an article about this. He explains that there are some topics like building a website or online marketing that have a lot of in-depth articles written on the topic. If you read enough of them, you’d probably get the same information that would be in a book of the same topic — especially for topics on continuous innovation.
Commitment and authors
What makes the difference is that books offer a much closer connection with the author or authors. With books, especially from experts, you seek to know their history, the process they have lived through, and how they have come to acquire the knowledge they share. In articles, this connection is not so profound, however, due to its variety, it allows you to experience the opinions from different experts.
Also, reading books require a higher level of commitment if you want to complete the book. Reading books would feel like having a conversation with the author and this can take some hours or days. Reading articles, however, require less time and effort, you can easily read them in your free time during the day because it isn’t lengthy. For those with demanding jobs, reading articles becomes a more realistic way of gaining knowledge.
Likewise, when you buy a book, it is difficult to abandon it quickly when you realize it was not what you expected. On the other hand, with the articles, if you lose interest at the beginning or in the middle of the article, you can move on to another without feeling any kind of remorse for not having finished it.
Constant innovation
In times of constant innovation, knowledge always has to be up to date. The articles allow you to have quality information on topics that are changing very quickly. Shanu Mathew in his article explained the way articles help more efficiently to have up to date information as opposed to books.
Books actually have a disadvantage in industries where things change quickly since it is easier to find new articles on new tech than it is to find a new book on it.
Books are a long term project, it can take years to achieve. However, it is fair to say that they also stay longer in our minds than some of the high-quality articles. You might remember things written in an article, and it can stick with you forever, but due to the amount of information we find online today, it becomes very difficult to know exactly where you read it from.
In the end, it all depends on what your goal is when reading, the quality of the book, the author, the sources of the articles, the time or commitment you desire to put in, etc.
If you are a researcher, books are more valued than articles hands down. You have to have a couple in your sources. Scientific articles are great for research too because they have the credibility needed in comparison to articles. However, all types of articles, even if they aren’t backed up by scientific research, can be great eye-openers. Many times, articles may help you to quickly recognize topics that might interest you and guide you through different branches of knowledge.
