Is Reading Books Still Worth It?

I haven't picked up a book in months. Maybe longer. And honestly? I don't think it's hurt my work.

When I need to learn something, I ask AI. When I'm stuck on a problem, I describe it and get an answer. The old model was: read the book, absorb the framework, apply it later. The new model is: start the work, hit the wall, ask the question, get the answer, keep moving.

This feels more efficient. But something about it bothers me, and I can't fully articulate why.

The Case Against Books

Here's the logic that's been running through my head:

People learn to achieve things. Every goal breaks down into tasks. Tasks can be solved by learning on-the-fly—ask a question, get an answer, apply it, move on. Why front-load hundreds of hours reading a book when you could just solve problems as they emerge?

AI is getting remarkably good at answering questions. And questions are the driver of learning. The information is there when you need it. Why store it in your head?

For procedural knowledge—how to do X—this seems obviously right. I don't need to read a book about Python syntax when I can ask for the exact function I need in the moment.

The Uncomfortable Question

But here's what I keep circling back to: where do good questions come from?

When I ask AI a useful question, I already know enough to recognize what I don't know. I have some mental model of the problem space. I can identify the gap.

Where did that scaffolding come from? Probably from years of reading things I didn't immediately need.

This is where the research gets interesting. Cognitive scientists distinguish between different types of knowledge: procedural (how to do things), conceptual (mental models and frameworks), and tacit (judgment and intuition). Q&A with AI excels at procedural knowledge. The question is whether it can build the other two.

What the Research Says

Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCLA, has spent decades studying what she calls "deep reading." Her finding: deep reading activates different neural pathways than information retrieval—specifically areas associated with critical analysis, empathy, and integration of background knowledge. This isn't about preference. It's measurable brain activity.

"If you think about the brain as a series of muscles, these young readers do not exercise the muscles that, through labor and effort over time, contribute to the growth of the circuit. Writing is a perfect example. If you farm it all out to ChatGPT, children and youth are not only vulnerable, but they are losing the potential for their own brains to become ever more elaborated, and thus more able to evaluate and to articulate their own best thoughts. Our society's rapacious appetite for efficiency and effort-saving is ultimately anathema to the developing reading brain."

When we skim and search, we're optimizing for speed. When we read deeply, we're building something else—what Wolf calls the "contemplative dimension" of cognition.

There's also Keith Stanovich's work on the "Matthew Effect" in reading: children who read more develop larger vocabularies, which enables more reading, which enables more learning. The compounding happens because sustained reading builds foundational schemas that make future learning possible.

The uncomfortable implication: maybe the reason I can learn effectively through Q&A now is because I spent years building mental models through reading. I'm drawing down a balance I'm no longer depositing into.

The Kid Question (I Don't Have an Answer)

This is where I genuinely don't know what to think.

My own learning as a kid was traditional: textbooks, sustained reading, building frameworks before applying them. I never experienced the alternative. So I can't compare.

But what about kids growing up now? Should they still grind through textbooks? Or should they learn through projects with AI assistants, asking questions as they go?

The research on project-based learning is actually promising. Studies show students in well-structured project-based environments outperform traditional instruction—sometimes significantly. Second-graders in project-based programs gained 5-6 extra months of learning in social studies compared to peers in traditional classrooms.

But here's the nuance: those project-based programs still had structure. They weren't just "figure it out with AI." There was scaffolding. There was a curriculum. There was a teacher guiding inquiry.

Maybe there's a threshold—some minimum viable schema—that you need before Q&A learning becomes effective. Below that threshold, you don't even know what to ask. Above it, just-in-time learning works.

I have no idea where that threshold is. And I suspect no one else does either.

Where I Land (For Now)

I'm not going to argue that books are "better." That feels like nostalgia dressed up as principle.

But I'm also not ready to say they're obsolete. The research suggests something real happens during deep reading that doesn't happen during information retrieval. Whether that "something" matters for adults in their domain who already have strong mental models—I'm not sure.

For kids and for building expertise in entirely new domains? The jury's still out. My intuition says there's something there. But I've been wrong about plenty of intuitions.

What I'm most curious about: are there people who've built genuine expertise in complex domains purely through Q&A learning, without the front-loaded reading? What was that experience like? Where did it work, and where did it break down?

I don't have the answer. But I think it's a question worth asking.