Prática de Shadowing: The Male Reading Crisis - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo
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Something strange is happening on my YouTube feed.
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Since I got back into reading daily over a year ago, I've been getting more and more videos about books on my recommended page.
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However, that's not the strange part because we all know big tech is always listening.
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What was strange was that 8 times out of 10, a book-related video was from a woman's channel.
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If I do happen to stumble across a male channel talking about books, it's almost always the same few self-help ones, the subtle art of not giving a fuck 48 Laws of Power,
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Atomic Habits, or Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
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When you look at the statistics, you realize this isn't all too strange.
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In 2023, it was found that women made up roughly 80% of fiction sales in the US, UK, and Canada.
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Men, on average, also read much less.
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In a 2013 survey, 51% of women read more than 30 books a year compared with 34% of men.
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In 2015, it was 55% and 28%, and in 2018, it was 60% and 20%.
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What happened to men reading for pleasure, or at all?
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What are the cultural and biological factors that led to this decline?
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And what will be the consequences if this trend continues?
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Let's answer those questions in this video.
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First, an update on overall reading trends.
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In a 2022 survey, the NEA reported that 48.5% of adults read at least one book in the past year,
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compared with 52.7% five years earlier and 54.6% ten years earlier.
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The sharpest decline can be observed with novels and short stories, aka fiction, especially among young men.
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In 2017 the share of women reading novels or short stories was down to 50% and in 2022 to 46.9%.
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But men saw their fiction reading rate slip from 35.1% in 2012 to 33.0% in 2017 and then to 27.7% in 2022.
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That clashes with what we know about overall print book sales which have actually increased in the past decade.
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So who is driving this upward trend In sales?
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Mostly women.
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To understand why this is the case, we can look back as far as our adolescence.
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A book trust poll found that 42% of mothers, compared with 29% of fathers, read with their under ones every day,
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while 71% of mothers, compared with 62% of fathers, read with their three year olds every day.
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In another study titled African American White and Latino Fathers Activities with their sons and daughters in early childhood,
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researchers found that fathers of boys engaged in physical play more frequently than fathers of girls, whereas fathers of girls engaged more frequently in literary activities.
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From the time we are born, men adopt common gender roles and therefore have little to no male reading role models.
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Now this is where you can make a nature versus nurture argument.
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Do fathers feel more biologically inclined to prepare their sons for the physicality of the world, or is it because that's what our culture has taught them to do?
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Honestly, I think it's a little bit of both.
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I think men tend to naturally gravitate towards and fixate on things related to the physical rather than the emotional,
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which pushes many men to over-develop that area of their life and under-develop the more intuitive, empathetic, emotional side.
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However, this is 100% not an excuse to allow this trend to persist.
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There is so much lacking culturally in regards to how men treat other men
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and how they perceive other men who are more in touch with their emotional literary side.
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We are told that allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, letting our emotions express themselves, and being moved by words on a page is childish or gay.
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As a result, our interests develop in different ways, and I think this subtly influences us to find books, especially fiction, less enjoyable than they are to women,
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which is backed up by the data.
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In 2018, 24% of 15 year old boys
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and 44% of girls the same age agreed that reading is one of my favorite hobbies,
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while 60% of boys and 39% of girls agreed that I read only to get information that I need.
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That same study found that more than 40% of girls at age 15 reported reading at least 30 minutes a day, compared to only about a quarter of boys who did the same.
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This is very telling of the general sentiment that I hear from a lot of younger guys regarding books, which is that unless they are directly contributing to the enhancement of one's utility,
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they are a waste of time.
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In a New York Times article titled, Why Did the Novel reading man disappear.
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A college literature professor said he had trouble getting many of
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the young men in his courses interested in the material because they did not see the benefit of novels.
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They're more interested in the instrumental, he said.
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Now why this is the case goes incredibly deep.
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There's so many different aspects to this
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and I've talked about masculinity a lot on this channel
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so I'm going to do my best to explain how it relates to reading books here.
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It is not entirely unjustified for young men to feel this way.
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Due to the system we live in, we are taught at a young age
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that we are worth nothing unless we have accomplished some sort of tangible success in our lives.
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And how our culture defines tangible success is usually in the form of wealth or status.
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Wealth usually comes in the form of money, but status can mean many different things.
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Social status, physical status, career status, intelligence status, etc. If you cannot signal that you have something substantial to provide to the world, you are treated like a ghost.
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And I'm not saying this isn't the case for women, women's worth is often derived from their outward appearances,
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but typically women are not socially punished as harshly if they're not reaching a certain outward appearance.
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So since this is what our culture and system magnifies in men,
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naturally men are going to gravitate towards activities that translate into skills that will stop them from being treated like a ghost.
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And on the surface, the only books that are justifiable to that cause are self-help books, but only a very particular type of self-help book.
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Self-help books tagged with memoir, biography, and autobiography have more female readers, while those tagged with science, business, psychology, and religion have more male readers.
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In other words, men are less interested in learning about people's stories, struggles, and emotions,
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and more interested in learning about how to gain what society values in men like money and power over others.
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And this is a massive reason why I decided to write my first novel, which, as of the day I'm publishing this video, has finally been released.
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I have for so long wanted to create a piece of work that would allow people, men specifically, to see the value in reading fiction in order to enhance their understanding of the world,
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and I believe my debut novel, Echoes Across Infinity, does just that.
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Echoes Across Infinity is about a 21-year-old named Elliot who lives in a post-pandemic world, aka our modern world, and due to a freak accident, ends up losing his mother.
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Through the trauma he endures, he begins to have uncontrollable visions of a foreign world, which he soon finds out is a parallel reality.
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Throughout the book, Elliot struggles with understanding his place in the world and how to grapple with his emotions, and using the parallel reality,
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learns how to transform his beliefs to create an identity he is genuinely proud of.
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This book is a blend of sci-fi, self-improvement philosophy, and psychology.
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It is a culmination of over 500 days of work, and I have never been more proud to promote something in a video.
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I genuinely believe this is a story worth reading, even if you aren't a guy, and it's the perfect gateway into fiction, so if you are interested in reading it,
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you can pick it up by going to one of the first links in my description.
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Please go check it out, because if you enjoy my videos, I think you will really be able to relate to the main character and you will absolutely love this book.
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And if you still aren't convinced yet, I think you will be by the end of this video.
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What's only exacerbated this trend of men putting their attention solely on things that result in utility is, of course, our economic situation as well.
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Capitalism breeds hustle culture.
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Hustle culture teaches the idea that you can be the most handsome, successful, popular dude if you just work every waking hour.
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And if you work every waking hour, you know what you don't have time for?
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Reading for pleasure.
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It better be a book about creating a Roth IRA, explaining the psychology of money, winning friends and influencing people, or being a manipulative dictator.
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And I'm not even saying that self-help books are inherently bad, but they They don't leave the same type of impact that fiction books do, a type of impact that is severely lacking in the modern world,
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which I will discuss more deeply when I go over the consequences towards the end of this video.
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Additionally, I think this helps us understand something that may or may not be shocking to you.
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Men are way more reluctant to read female authors than women are reluctant to read male authors.
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Newly analyzed data drawn from Nielsen Book Data's Consumer Research shows
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that for the top 20 best-selling female writers of fiction and nonfiction purchased in the UK in 2023, fewer than 20% of purchases were made by men,
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with the majority of these focused on the classics as opposed to works by contemporary writers.
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In comparison, 44% of the top 20 best-selling male writers of fiction and nonfiction were bought by women.
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Going off what we know about the culture and our economy, my hunch is that men are less open to receiving ideas
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and insights from someone like a female author who they might
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think not be able to help them with something regarding tangible value.
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Their motives for reading are different.
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Conversely, women are more open-minded and receptive towards receiving different viewpoints that come from men, and on top of that,
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their motive for reading is more frequently one of leisure.
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But that's just my theory, I would love to know what you think about this particular data point by leaving a comment.
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And since these trends in book sales have persisted for so long, the market has adapted to them, only further exacerbating this trend.
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In the New York Times article I mentioned earlier, the author highlights a walkthrough of a book chain in New York City.
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He states, Eventually, Mr. Kiyono took me to the front to look at an attractive customer favorites display.
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Here, pastel and vivid colors dominated the covers of books by romance and romantic-y stalwarts like Carly Fortune and Sarah J Maas,
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the author of the popular Account of Thorns and Roses series.
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It was also found that by 2020, for the first time in history, women were publishing more books than men,
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contributing to increased revenue for the industry for both male and female consumers.
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And I think many of these sales can be attributed to BookTok.
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BookTok is the site of TikTok where readers recommend and review their favorite books for their audiences.
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And if you search BookTok and scroll for even just a little, you will see that the majority of creators are women, and that they are mostly recommending the same types of books,
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like Romanticy, that are being displayed front and center in bookstores.
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So because of recent developments in reading, online and physical retailers start pushing more female dominated book genres to the forefront of their stores,
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thereby attracting more women than men, thereby disincentivizing men to actually browse books and choose something other than a self-help book mentioned by a guru online.
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This is not a bad thing of course, when you're a business and you see that the majority of your customers are women,
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of course you're gonna adjust your store or your marketing to appeal to the majority of your customers.
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And it's great that both men and women are publishing around the same amount of books now, which allows for better representation.
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But if this were to continue, I think men will find it increasingly hard to justify picking up a fiction book, or really any book for that matter.
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So what are the consequences of this?
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Well, we're already starting to see some of them and they don't look too good.
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One global study found
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that fourth grade girls had higher average reading achievement levels in
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almost all of the 50 countries surveyed than boys in the same grade, a trend that has held since 2001.
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According to the OECD, data looking at 15 year olds across developed countries, girls outperform boys in reading in every single OECD nation surveyed.
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And what happens when those guys grow up?
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They lag heavily behind in the very things they want to achieve by avoiding fiction.
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Studies show that people who read books not only live longer than people who don't read books, but also have a longevity advantage compared to those who read newspapers or magazines,
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even after adjusting for covariates such as age, education level, wealth, and health.
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The Barbara Bush Foundation found that high literacy rates are associated with a stronger economy, healthier families, safer communities, increased civic engagement,
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and therefore more opportunities to break multi-generational cycles of poverty.
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Multiple studies also show that reading fiction books specifically increases empathy and understanding of others more than reading non-fiction.
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So ironically, the very thing more men today are neglecting is the very thing
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that would indirectly translate to the tangible status and wealth they desire.
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And not only that, but reading fiction is perhaps the greatest defense mechanism against social media brain rot,
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which has overtaken almost all of our free time in place of genuinely healthy forms of escapism.
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So men, this is my message to you.
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You might think that reading is a waste of time, especially reading fiction,
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but you need the opportunity to place yourself in the mind of another in order to truly start understanding yourself.
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As men, we rarely have the chance to feel comfortable enough to open up to people, especially our guy friends, and that's a huge problem.
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But when you read fiction, you temporarily inhabit the minds of the characters.
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You gain a deeper understanding of how their emotions work, why they react the way they do, and how that hurts or contributes to their lives.
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And when you do that, what you are really doing is gaining a deeper understanding of yourself.
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You learn how to put your emotions into words, you learn how to handle conflict better, you become more open-minded to other people's beliefs and points of view,
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and therefore you are far more equipped to handle the real world when you return to it.
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Humans are wired to learn through stories, not self-help facts without any emotional stakes tied to them.
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I genuinely think there might not be a better way to solve this issue of men being reluctant to empathize, understand women, show their emotions,
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process them, and become more well-rounded men than getting men into reading fiction again.
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So instead of using your downtime to numb your brain with mindless stimulation, dive into a classic, read a fun fantasy story that transports you to a different world,
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sit with what you've read and try to translate it to your own experiences.
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Help it put words to things and ideas you previously had no way to articulate.
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Because the more that you do that, the more peaceful and fulfilling life becomes.
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And the more peaceful and fulfilling that life becomes, the more you start to get all of those things that you thought you wanted,
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that you might soon come to realize you didn't actually want as a byproduct.
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Whether you're an avid sci-fi reader or you want to get into the incredible genres within fiction, I highly recommend you check out my debut novel Echoes Across Infinity.
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I know I said it already, but I'm just so proud of what I created.
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I really put my all into this, and I'm just so excited for you guys to get your hands on this book and let me know what you think.
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If it sucks, tell me.
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Write a review.
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If it rocks, tell me.
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Also write a review.
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Please.
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Either way, if you do end up purchasing it, it really means the world to me because I just put everything into this,
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and I do genuinely think it's a story worth reading that will lead to a better understanding of yourself and your life.
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This is usually where I recommend another one of my videos, but I'd rather you log off right now and read a book.
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Read something.
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Read, get into a story, get some healthy escapism going, enjoy the outside, just enjoy the summer, and yeah, thank you so much for watching until the end,
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and I hope that you enjoy my story.
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Vocabulário e dicas de fala para esta lição
Esta aula de conversação de nível B2 usa o vídeo “The Male Reading Crisis”. Este vídeo tem 169 frases e 2881 palavras para praticar shadowing. A fala dura 15:08. O falante fala rápido, cerca de 190 palavras por minuto, então espere sons ligados e reduzidos. 84% das palavras estão entre as 3.000 mais comuns do inglês; vale a pena estudar o restante antes de começar.
Vocabulário principal deste vídeo
As 15 palavras mais avançadas do vídeo, com pronúncia e significado:
| Palavra | Pronúncia | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| emotion substantivo | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | emoção |
| tangible adjetivo | /ˈtæn.d͡ʒə.bəl/ | tangível |
| reluctant adjetivo | /ɹɪˈlʌktənt/ | relutante |
| translate verbo | /tɹænzˈleɪt/ | traduzir, verter |
| consequence substantivo | /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/ | consequência, resultado |
| publish verbo | /ˈpʌblɪʃ/ | publicar |
| escapism substantivo | /ɪˈskeɪpɪzəm/ | escapismo |
| gravitate verbo | /ˈɡɹævɪteɪt/ | gravitar |
| hustle verbo | /ˈhʌsəl/ | apressar-se |
| fulfill verbo | /fʊlˈfɪl/ | realizar, cumprir |
| dominate verbo | /ˈdɑ.məˌneɪt/ | dominar |
| motive substantivo | /ˈmoʊtɪv/ | motivo |
| thereby advérbio | /ðɛɹˈbaɪ/ | com isso, assim |
| adjust verbo | /əˈd͡ʒʌst/ | ajustar |
| genre substantivo | /ˈ(d)ʒɑnɹə/ | gênero, género |
Phrasal verbs que você vai ouvir
| Palavra | Pronúncia | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| end up verbo | terminar, acabar | |
| check out verbo | verificar, sacar só | |
| find out verbo | descobrir | |
| go off verbo | explodir | |
| grow up verbo | crescer | |
| make up verbo | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | compensar |
| pick up verbo | pegar |
Gramática neste vídeo
As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:
| Estrutura | No vídeo |
|---|---|
| Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem faz | was found · can be observed · are born |
| Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agora | have actually increased · has taught · I've talked |
| Orações relativas who / which + oração — informação extra sobre uma pessoa ou coisa | sales which have · men who are · books, which is |
Pronúncia para ficar de olho
O falante usa 26 contrações e formas reduzidas, como I'm, don't, you're. Diga-as na forma curta, do jeito que você ouve.
- Os sons de “th”: thereby /ðɛɹˈbaɪ/, empathetic /ˌɛmpəˈθɛtɪk/, empathize /ˈɛmpəˌθaɪz/, empathy /ˈɛmpəθi/
- Os sons de “sh” e “zh”: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/, genre /ˈ(d)ʒɑnɹə/, culmination /ˌkʌl.mɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, stimulation /stɪm.jʊˈleɪ.ʃən/
- Palavras longas — acerte a sílaba tônica: genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/, escapism /ɪˈskeɪpɪzəm/, adolescence /ˌædəˈlɛsəns/, covariate /koʊˈvɛɹ.i.eɪt/, culmination /ˌkʌl.mɪˈneɪ.ʃən/
Sons difíceis para falantes de português:
- Consoante final — sem acrescentar um “i” depois: reluctant /ɹɪˈlʌktənt/, translate /tɹænzˈleɪt/, gravitate /ˈɡɹævɪteɪt/, outward /ˈaʊt.wɚd/, dominate /ˈdɑ.məˌneɪt/
- /l/ final — a língua toca o céu da boca, não vira “u”: tangible /ˈtæn.d͡ʒə.bəl/, hustle /ˈhʌsəl/, fulfill /fʊlˈfɪl/, scroll /skɹoʊl/, instrumental /ɪnstɹəˈmɛntəl/
- /h/ — um sopro suave, diferente do “r”: hustle /ˈhʌsəl/, inherently /ɪnˈhɛɹəntli/, enhancement /ɪnˈhæns.mənt/, hobby /ˈhɑ.bi/, enhance /ɪnˈhæns/
Como praticar com este vídeo
- Ouça o vídeo inteiro uma vez sem falar e anote as palavras que você não conhece.
- Comece na velocidade 0,75×, faça shadowing frase por frase e volte à velocidade normal quando ficar fácil.
- Grave a sua voz e compare com o original, prestando atenção a palavras como emotion, tangible, reluctant.
O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.