reading

College students are rapidly losing a critical skill: reading.

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My students can’t read. It is the title of the opinion column in which Tyler Jagtuniversity literature professor, narrates the situation currently found in his classrooms. Many students are not able to read or maintain the plot of a 20-page text. He believes that AI and mobile phones are to blame. 20 pages is too much. This teacher says that he has been assigning the same task to his rhetoric and writing students for five years: reading a 20-page article. However, this year none of his students finished the work and they were not repeaters, but rather university students who had passed the entrance exams. One of them was honest and admitted that the text was too long and “constantly missed the point of the article.” Jagt acknowledges that the complaint that students do not know how to read is common among teachers, but according to him this time things are serious and there is data that corroborates it. The tests. According to the results of the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), students in grade 12 (equivalent to a 2nd year of Baccalaureate in Spain) obtained the lowest score on the reading test since the assessment began in 1992. A third of the participants reached the basic level, which means that they are likely not able to “draw general conclusions based on concepts explicitly presented in a text.” Younger students are even worse off. According to a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation70% of fourth grade students (like fourth grade) are not able to read fluently. That is in the United States, but in Spain the situation is not ideal either. According to the OECDat least a third of the Spanish population has level 1 reading comprehension, which means that “they can only understand very short texts with a minimum of distracting information.” A report from the BBVA Foundation and the Valencian Institute of Economic Research (Ivie)Spaniards between 25 and 34 years old, who have studied more than their parents, advance much more slowly in basic skills. It’s technology’s fault. Or at least that is what the author maintains, specifically the emergence of smartphones and, more recently, AI. The idea that technology makes us stupid has been accompanying us for decades and with the emergence of AI, technological panic has intensified. That students are using AI to do their jobs is something we already knew. What is still not clear is what consequences it can have on a cognitive level. There is no evidence that technology produces cognitive damage (yes changes), but it is also true that until now we have not had a technology capable of doing everything that AI does. Debt and cognitive surrender. They are two concepts that emerged from recent studies. The first, cognitive debtcomes from a MIT research titled “Your brain on ChatGPT”. Participants who used ChatGPT had the worst brain performance when completing a task that involved writing essays. The researchers conclude that using AI as a complete substitute for mental effort can weaken our neural connections. The idea of cognitive surrender is mentioned in a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania. According to researchers, cognitive surrender arises when we delegate our thinking to AI and accept its answers too confidently. Another study from the University of Oxford saw how If we use AI and then it is taken away from us, our performance worsens. not so fast. There is an important nuance and that is that the concept of “using AI” is very varied. We can use it without checking the answers and accepting everything it tells us or we can use it as a tool in our creative process. In fact, in several of these studies, participants who used AI as support obtained scores very similar to those of the group that did not use AI. Therefore it is not whether we use it or not, it is how we use it. However, the arguments in favor of using AI in educational environments are becoming fewer and fewer. There was a study that said using chatbots like ChatGPT had a positive impact on learning, but was recently withdrawn due to “concerns regarding discrepancies”. Come on, the biggest argument of the defenders of educational AI went down the drain. The other culprit. As we said, this professor also points to smartphones as responsible for this situation. Appointment a 2017 study in which they verified how the simple presence of the mobile phone reduced the “available cognitive capacity”. He also cites another 2022 study in which they saw that reading on a smartphone was associated with prefrontal overload and decreased concentration. Tiktokize the school. The problem is not cell phones, but social networks and doomscrolling that hijacks our attention. We have become accustomed to consuming pills of information in the form of tweets, posts, reels and tiktoks. In this context, a 20-page text is much, much. Tyler Jagt is adapting to this reality by dividing work into two, so they have to read less, and assigning specific tasks so they don’t lose track as much. Image | Siora Photography in Unsplash In Xataka | “I can’t stop”: the addiction to talking to AI is already here and there are even support groups to quit it

We have been reading the Bible as a moral guide for centuries. More and more people use it for something else: looking for investment funds

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When one puts your savings (many or few) in investment funds what you want are good returns. May your money generate more money. The question is… When pursuing this objective, can any criteria be applied beyond the strictly economic one? Is the search for profitability compatible with a moral approach? There are people who believe that the answer is ‘yes’ and that the financial sector must grow with an eye on environmental ethics or social, what happens, for example, by not supporting polluting companies. In that line, more and more people He decides to put his money in another type of investment funds: those that combine the search for profits with the morality of the Catholic Church. Investments and ethics? Exact. Although investment funds and exchange traded funds (ETF) are tools created to generate money, part of the financial sector has been trying to manage them with an ethical approach. Their idea is very simple: they offer returns, but with the guarantee that their analysts will be as attentive to the stock market as they are to the ESG criteria (Environmental, social and governance). That is, the idea is to bet on companies that in theory apply good practices and are respectful of the environment. What about religion? Among these ‘ethical’ funds, not all of them focus on respect for nature or human rights. There are those who emphasize the spiritual. His idea is that money generates profitability thanks to companies that conform to the precepts of a religion. Said this way, it may sound very abstract, but in practice it is very simple: investors avoid companies that make money through pornography, contraceptives, gambling, drugs, child exploitation, weapons, stem cell research… A clear example is the ‘Islamic EFT’funds that operate with sharia on the one hand, betting on companies that comply with the laws of the Koran. Does it happen with Christianity? Yes, too. In fact, just a few months ago, in februarythe Vatican Bank launched two stock indices that aim to make it easier for those who want to invest their money with a Catholic mentality. To be more precise, the Institute for the Opera of Religion (IOR) presented the Morningstar IOE Eurozone Catholic Principles and Morningstar IOR US Catholic Principles, a sort of S&P 500 and Euro Stoxx 50 ‘Vatican version’. “Both benchmarks are developed following best market practices and in accordance with Catholic ethical criteria. They are designed to serve as a reference for Catholic investments around the world,” explains the IOR. In the case of the European index are included for example, the banks Santander and BBVA, the technology company ASML or the luxury firm Hermes, while other multinationals with defense subsidiaries or presence in the alcohol market are relegated. In the case of the USA, Meta or Amazon appear. But… Do these funds move money? Yes. We know it thanks to a recent analysis of Five Days which confirms that Christian funds are strengthening their footprint globally. And clearly, too. The latest report from the consulting firm Brightlight shows that in the last five years alone they have doubled their assets, going from just over 58.5 billion dollars in the summer of 2020 to more than 115,700 million at the end of September 2025. If we look further back, funds based on Christian principles barely accumulated an asset of 16.5 billion in 2009 or 1,500 in 1990. What do they invest in? The increase in variable income assets stands out above all, followed by fixed income assets. In total Brightlight has identified 166 funds Christians, which is also double the number recorded in 2010. Such an increase is not explained only by the launch of the two indices of the IOR in February. Much earlier, in 2022, the Church already published Mensuram Bonama document with “a set of principles and criteria” aimed at the financial sector. “Investors are increasingly looking for benchmarks that reflect specific value- or policy-based criteria,” defend Morningstar. And how are they doing? Not bad. Although in general investment funds that are guided by ESG criteria have not gone through his best moment (last year they saw capital outflows worth more than $80 billion), the S&P 500 Catholic Values ​​Index has located above of the S&P 500 in recent years. Nothing surprising, moreover, if we see the list of companies on which it focuses. The growth of funds with a Christian focus can be explained, beyond the drift of the stock market, by their own characteristics. Some, for example, donate a part of their commissions to entities linked to the Church. Images | Virgil Cayasa (Unsplash) In Xataka | There is a piece of information that clarifies whether or not the Spanish Generation Z is experiencing an upswing in religiosity: the 29-59% paradox

Booktubers already confess that they read ChatGPT summaries. The question now is what is “reading” in 2025

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The booktubers (social media content creators whose identity revolves around reading) are starting to shamelessly admit that they don’t read the books they recommend: they read what ChatGPT says and summarizes about them. The curious thing is that, unlike what more veteran readers would do, they do not confess it to their smartphone as something they believe they should be ashamed of, or apologizing to their followers for generating second-rate content. They count it as a productivity hack, a clever solution to the problem of having to produce content about books they don’t actually have time to read. 100 books in a week. The most striking case of this trend (that is still kicking) spiked in August 2025, when a TikTok user published a video in which He claimed to have read 100 books in a week.. The trick: the SoBrief app, which offers more than 73,500 audio and text summaries with the hook of “finish any book in 10 minutes.” The reaction on social networks was immediate: what is left of reading if what you are looking for It’s not exactly Lee’s experience.r? It was even commented that these booktubers had managed to make what Bradbury advocated in ‘Fahrenheit 451’ a reality (possibly the summary does not talk about it). It’s all invented. Although generative AI is now capable of summarizing the book we want in seconds, the Internet has been doing this function for years (in a more laborious way, of course). CliffsNotes, in fact, is pre-internet: has been on the market since 1958 publishing books that summarize other books, as an aid for students. SparkNotes, founded by four Harvard students in 1999democratized literary summaries on the internet and made them free. Blinkist, born in 2012, transferred that spirit to nonfiction essays. There is a whole geneological line which ranges from these meeting points for students who didn’t arrive in time to read the books (we had ‘The Lazy Corner’) to NotebookILM and ChatGPT, which devastates all of the above: ChatGPT is free and can summarize anything in minutes. The novelty coincides with the growing pressure on creators of literary content to give their opinion on everything that comes to market. The perfect storm. Second-hand identities. Beyond there being influencers more or less honest with their followers, the conversation and the underlying controversy affects the cultural identity of the books. In the column cited above, Marc Watkins talks about the importance of the bookshelf that was seen in Zoom video calls during the pandemic (which led to the trend of hiring services that sent you books with the “right” authors for the background of your meetings). We have reached the point where the idea of ​​being readers is valued more than the act of being one. There is thousand incarnations of this idea: books sorted by color on Instagram, hauls of visits to the bookstore that are never read, the videos of “books that changed my life” with recently purchased titles… being a reader is the center of these new identities, when reading itself should be. No humans have been harmed. We have a conceptual caper that rounds out all this chaos: a good part of the books that circulate in these communities were not written by any human either. According to a study from January 2026 that analyzed 844 books from the “Success” self-help subcategory on Amazon, published between August and November 2025, 77% were likely written entirely by AI models (although these assertions must also be pick them up with tweezers). The same report states that less than 4% of the authors in that sample published 12% of all titles. There are profiles that published five or more books in the period analyzed. One of the extreme cases is that of an author who published an entire series of motivational books in three days. Human participation in this entire assembly line is minimal: the content is synthetic, it is summarized by an AI, it is commented on by creators who have not read it, and the public participates in a conversation about books that no one in the chain really knows what they are about (and it doesn’t matter much either). It traffics in the shadow of books: signs that there are books somewhere, data about their existence, reactions to those data. In Xataka | There is only something as fascinating as the work of Albert Camus, his death: absurd, unforeseen and with the shadow of the KGB

The latest MacBook Air drops in price, the perfect eReader for reading on the subway is on sale, sales on consoles and more. Hunting Bargains

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There is little left to close the month of April and so far we have been seeing very good offers on all types of devices, especially on Nintendo Switch 2 and some Apple phones and computers. Do you want to know what the best deals are right now? These are the ones we have been finding throughout the week and that are still available. MacBook Air M5 by 1,099 eurosthe latest Air laptop launched by Apple with a good storage configuration. nintendo switch 2 by 469 eurosa pack that includes ‘Pokémon Pokopia’ and a keychain. Kobo Clara BW by 129 eurosthe ideal e-book reader for reading away from home due to its quality and size. Poco X8 Pro 5G by 263.97 eurosan economical mobile phone with a very large battery. Atari 7800+ by 66.90 eurosa retro console that is compatible with the original cartridges. Nintendo Switch 2 + Pokémon Pokopia + keychain The price could vary. We earn commission from these links MacBook Air M5 If this week there is a notable offer in the Apple brand, it is the one from the MacBook Air M5 because its price has dropped to 1,099 euros. This is the configuration of 512GB storagecomes with the M5 chip to ensure good power and excellent performance and is perfect if you want it to study or even work, whether at home or away thanks to its 13.6-inch diagonal, its thickness or its weight of 1.23 kg. MacBook Air M5 (512GB) – 13.6 inches The price could vary. We earn commission from these links nintendo switch 2 MediaMarkt has launched what is one of the best promotions of the nintendo switch 2. By 469 euroswhich is what the console costs by itself, you get it as a gift ‘Pokémon Pokopia‘ (physical edition, game key card) along with a keychain of… yes, ‘Mario Kart World’. It is the same keychain from the previous pack that included said video game. The offer will be available until April 28 unless units are sold out before. Nintendo Switch 2 + Pokémon Pokopia + keychain The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kobo Clara BW Several stores, including MediaMarkt, have lowered the price of Kobo Clara BW until the 129 euros. It is one of the eReaders with the best quality-price ratio on the market and is ideal if what you are looking for is to read at home and away from home. Because? Comes with a screen E Ink Letter 1300 six inches, so it maintains the good quality of this type of screen and a compact format so that it is comfortable to carry. Its performance is very good and it is waterproof, so you can use it next to a pool in summer. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Poco X8 Pro 5G Do you want to renew your mobile? Well, be careful because AliExpress has 263.97 euros he Poco X8 Pro 5G. He is the younger brother of his generation who stands out among other things for his great 6,500 mAh battery with 100W fast charging, so it will give you a good autonomy of approximately two days. It also comes with the Dimensity 8500 Ultra processor and HyperOS operating system. Poco X8 Pro 5G (256 GB) – European version The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Atari 7800+ The Atari 7800+ It is a particularly interesting retro console because it is compatible with original cartridges. Its price right now is 66.90 euros and, although it is true that the design has been maintained quite faithfully, it includes certain improvements to have a better experience, such as an HDMI port and options to choose between several resolutions. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Image | Apple, Nintendo, Rakuten Kobo, Xiaomi, Atari In Xataka | The best mobile phones (2026), we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best electronic book readers (e-readers) in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and five recommended models

Science has calculated the real impact of reading books on your brain. And it has a very simple recipe: 30 minutes a day

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It is well known that a sedentary lifestyle It is one of the great enemies of public healthespecially at advanced ages where muscle loss is a great danger. However, there are sedentary activities that are really beneficial and that we sometimes stop, such as reading books. Its benefit is such that science has shown that immersing yourself in the pages of a good book It not only feeds the intellect, but also lengthens life. The demonstration. One of the most important studies who wanted to focus on the benefits of reading, beyond the cognitive benefits or the richness of vocabulary for everyday life, analyzed a group of 3,635 nationally representative participants in the United States over 12 years. And as a result, they saw that the longer the time spent reading books, lower risk of mortality. The results. To understand the magnitude of the discovery, the researchers followed all the patients until 20% of them died and only 80% remained. There they put the cut and began to draw conclusions. The first is that non-readers reached this point at 85 months, while book readers reached this same threshold at 108 months. This is something that translates into a 23-month survival advantage for those who had the habit of reading books, or in other words, readers reduced the risk of mortality by 20% throughout the 12 years of follow-up. Furthermore, this protection was maintained regardless of a person’s gender, wealth, education, or health status. The format matters. Although you may think that any type of reading is appropriate, even the back of a shampoo, the reality is quite different. In this case, the study explicitly compared the impact of reading books versus reading the newspaper or a magazine. The findings here demonstrated that reading books contributes to a significantly greater survival advantage than that seen with newspapers or magazines. While magazines offer short articles that we often skim, books require a higher level of concentration. Something that is enhanced above all because the authors constantly present themes, characters and topics and that is essential to be able to follow the thread of the story that is being presented to us. Because? Here science is quite clear that the key is in the brain, since the “cognitive score” functioned as a complete mediator of this survival advantage. This means that reading books improves cognition and it is this cognitive improvement that prolongs life. Here reading books activates different specific neural processes that create this advantage. Among the most notable points, we find that active reading of books improves skills such as reasoning, concentration, critical thinking and vocabulary. But it also promotes social perception, empathy and emotional intelligence, which can lead to better health behaviors and stress reduction. Fundamental things when we talk about extending life. It’s backed up. In addition to the original study published in 2016, science has wanted to continue investigating the benefits of reading with a study published in 2024 where the complexity of reading in older adults pointed to less cognitive decline. But it has also been decided to analyze even the cultural level of the citizens, where it has been seen that low literacy increases mortalityonce again making the act of reading books stimulate our brain and protect our cognitive reserve. Although it is not necessary to be reading all day to guarantee having a better brain, studies specifically point out that with about 30 minutes a day It is enough to start reaping these advantages and obtain more years of life in which to continue reading. Images | Blaz Photo In Xataka | The problem is not that we are reading fewer books: it is that the books we read are much simpler and easier

We have been reading philosophers from the West and Asia for centuries in search of the secret of happiness. Turns out the Aztecs had it

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Each course Lynn Sebastian Purcell, philosophy professor, repeat the same experiment. After reviewing the passage from the ‘Odyssey’ in which Ulysses renounces an eternal life of pleasures with the nymph Calypso to search for his wife and son, the teacher presents a dilemma to his students: How many would do the same as the king of Ithaca? “How many of you would reject immortality and a pleasant existence on the condition that you never see your family and loved ones again?” defiant spear Purcell to the classroom. The answer is always the same: nobody. The ‘Odyssey’ is an epic poem that connects with the Greco-Latin tradition, but in reality that particular passage about Ulysses summarizes well the vital philosophy of a civilization that lived thousands of kilometers from the Ionian Sea: the aztec. Goal: happiness. I don’t know exactly who you are, but it’s quite likely that you, me and the more than 8 billion Of people who share this world, we agree that it is desirable to have a happy life. Logical, right? Happiness is one of those golden nuggets that philosophy has been searching for for centuries. I did it in times of Epicurus and he does it in our days. In fact one of the most famous treatises of Bertrand Russella famous philosopher of the 20th century, is titled with a phrase that is quite a proclamation: “The conquest of happiness”. The lesson of Ulysses. However, it is one thing to aspire to happiness and another to decide how to achieve it or even what exactly happiness is. This is where the passage from the ‘Odyssey’ of the nymph Calypso. If it’s just about seeking happiness, Ulysses already had it, right? If we agree that the goal is to be happy (just like that), isn’t it a good idea to spend an eternal life, free of illness and deprivation, living with a goddess on a distant paradise island? Why does Ulysses decide to return to the sea… and his hardships? “Let it be worth it”. Ulysses’ attitude (like that of Purcell’s students) connects fully with a philosophical ethic that for decades has gone unnoticed in the West: that of the pre-Columbian Aztecs. For them, remember the teacherwhat humanity really seeks is not so much a life full of happiness and pleasures as “an existence that is worthwhile.” That’s the goal. The texts that are preserved and tell us about how the Aztecs saw the world show that for them humanity faced “an existential problem,” In Purcell’s words: a brief, fickle existence, during which it is impossible to control everything just as it is not to skate in a quagmire. “Slippery is the land”. “What they wanted to say is that, despite our best intentions, our life is prone to error, failure in our objectives and, therefore, to ‘fall’, as if we were going to end up in the mud. Furthermore, this earth is a place where joy comes mixed with pain and setbacks,” explains the professor in an article published by the Philosophy Association (APA). In it he remembers that this entire conception of the world can be summarized in a popular saying: “Slippery, slick is the earth”“slippery, slippery is the earth.” Wait, Aztec philosophy? Exact. It has not been easy to survive and in the West we may not have paid enough attention to it, but that does not mean that the pre-Columbian Aztecs created a valuable philosophical corpus, with different currents and treatises. “We have many volumes of his texts recorded in his native language, Nahuatl,” claims Purcell at the BBC. “While few of the pre-colonial hieroglyphic-type books survived the Spanish burnings, our main sources of knowledge derive from the records made by Catholic priests until the early 17th century.” A different vision. Thanks to them we preserve codices with sayings, exhortations, poems, dialogues… different manifestations that essentially tell us about the same thing: how the Aztecs who lived between the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th approached existence. Good example is the ‘Florentine Codex’a bilingual work by friar Bernardino de Sahagún on pre-Columbian knowledge. His legacy is not only interesting because of what he tells us, it is also interesting, Purcell claimsbecause it opens our eyes to “another pre-modern culture with an ethics of virtues”, one different from the legacy of Aristotle or even Confucius. “Place of joy with fatigue”. At this point the question is obvious… If the Aztecs believed that what humans really want are lives “worthwhile”, even more than joyful and pleasant existences, how to achieve it? How to face the passage through this world, “a place of joy with fatigue and pain”, as an Aztec passage says? The key is in a recipe with four ingredients, four “levels” that allow us to enjoy a rooted life, “neltiliztli”. Continuing with the metaphor of existence as a swampy terrain, full of mud, the idea is to take root to gain a foothold. And how to achieve it? To begin by ‘rooting’ in one’s own body. As Purcell explains, the figurines and descriptions we preserve of the Aztecs show us that they liked to exercise their bodies. In fact, they had a regimen of activities aimed at stretching and strengthening the body that is partly reminiscent of yoga. Rooted in the body, it had to be done at another level: the “psyche”, seeking a balance between the heart and the head, desires and judgment. “Only in the middle can you go, only in the middle can you live”, advises one of his works. Social creatures… and of the earth. In an article Published years ago in Aeon, the scholar of Latin American philosophy points out two more levels at which those who want to achieve a rooted life must work, “neltiliztli”, a term that is also used as “truth” and “goodness.” The first level is “rootedness in the community.” We live surrounded by people, in societies in which we play a role that connects us with others and activates the … Read more

There are TikTok influencers reading ‘Wuthering Heights’ and not understanding its vocabulary. It shouldn’t surprise us

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A viral video where a young Spanish woman complains about the difficulty of reading the romantic classic ‘Wuthering Heights’ has sparked a generational debate about reading comprehension. But beyond the controversy, the data show a real problem: reading skills are falling in all generations, with digital natives being the sector of the population most especially affected. The video. It lasts just two minutesbut it has been generating debate for days. A 25-year-old girl complains, with her copy of ‘Wuthering Heights’ in hand, that she finds the language archaic, she needs to consult the dictionary constantly to understand terms like “tin” or “par excellence”, and she estimates that it will take months to finish it. The video has accumulated millions of views and has unleashed a generational war on social networks: how is it possible, say the most veterans, that a university student does not know relatively commonly used words or is not used to consulting a dictionary? The conversation should not be limited to pointing out blame and differences between educational levels. We are facing a generational change that alludes to how written language is processed, and ‘Wuthering Heights’ has become the accidental battlefield on which to explore that transformation. New times. There is a gap between contemporary narrative aimed at young audiences and literary classics. Young Adult (YA) prose, a genre that attracts millions of readers on social networks (a fact: 55% of the readers who roam TikTok are between 18 and 34 years old, and 78% they are women) prioritizes immediacy, agile dialogues and direct descriptions. It is literature designed for rapid consumption, in tune with digital rhythms. Emily Brontë, for her part, wrote for Victorian readers accustomed to long subordinate clauses, detailed descriptions, and a vocabulary that assumed a certain formal education. Distance is both temporal and structural: different narrative architectures for differently trained brains. The data. The TikTok viral could be interpreted as an isolated anecdote, but a recent study by the BBVA Foundation prepared by Spanish researchers with international data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). It reveals a progressive decline in reading and numerical skills since the Millennial generation: those born after 1980 show significantly lower cognitive skills than Baby Boomers and Generation X when they were the same age. According to the study, Generation Z obtains reading comprehension scores up to 20 points below Generation PIAAC standardized testswhich evaluate the ability to understand, interpret and use written information. The gap widens in numerical skills: young people born after 1995 show difficulties in interpreting graphs, calculating percentages or solving basic mathematical problems applied to real situations. The deterioration is systematic, and also affects developed countries with advanced educational systems. Eyes that do not see. The studies of eye tracking from the Nielsen Norman Group document how users read on the Internet following an F pattern: two horizontal sweeps across the top, followed by a quick vertical scan down the left side. Reading becomes selective keyword tracking. This behavior, typical of Internet browsing, is inappropriate for complex texts that require following arguments developed over multiple pages. The architecture of attention changes: we move from deep dive to shallow scan. The fault of social networks. Digital platforms are designed to capture attention through short, dopamine content. The algorithms reward 15-second videos, striking images, and texts that are consumed at a glance. The attention economy does not encourage depth, and reading ‘Wuthering Heights’ requires the opposite: sustained concentration, tolerance for ambiguity, the ability to memorize information while constructing cumulative meaning. They are skills that atrophy without training. If new generations show systematic deficits in these areas, the consequences transcend the debate over whether or not someone can read a Victorian classic. They affect how we process information of all kinds: medical, legal, financial, political… The young woman in the viral video may be a symptom of something more worrying than the inability to read texts with unusual vocabulary. Facilitate access? This controversy opens up a multitude of tremendously fascinating sub-controversies: educate better or facilitate access to complex texts? For example, Penguin Random House launched its collection in the United Kingdom in 2019. Penguin English Library with updated translations of classics, maintaining the original meaning but eliminating obsolete linguistic turns that slow down reading. The also British The School of Life He published versions “translated into modern English” of philosophers such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. AND apparentlythese editions sold 40% more than traditional versions among readers under 30 years of age during the year 2020-2021. But there is also the counterargument that simplifying language impoverishes the experience of reading. The classics are not just arguments or themes that can be transported to any packaging. For example, Brontë’s prose, with its labyrinthine subordinate clauses and convoluted vocabulary, builds atmosphere and rhythm. Removing that complexity to “make it easier” to read is like reducing the length of a classical music symphony because today’s listeners prefer three-minute songs. The search should perhaps be to improve reading training, not to adjust the texts to the less prepared reader. In Xataka | The best books to read in 2026: a selection of readings from all genres for a year between pages

ChatGPT has the same chance of hitting the Lottery Jackpot as a witch reading the guts of a crow

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There are those who always play the same number. Others travel half of Spain looking for the combination they have dreamed of or simply a special date. This dance of fetishes related to the Extraordinary Christmas Lottery Draw is now added a new name: ChatGPT. And the question is not only whether artificial intelligence is capable of guessing the winning number, something that is obviously not possible. It goes much further than that: there is a lot of superstition in this, but also of believing at face value what the AI ​​tells us. Even when we know that there is nothing behind it to support its results. ChatGPT and the lottery. Christmas is coming and with it interest in the Lottery increases. And with it, an unexpected protagonist also emerges again: ChatGPT. The OpenAI ‘chatbot’ has become another Christmas classic thanks to the fact that, one more yearwe Spaniards ask you again what the winning number will be. The objective is clear: that ChatGPT deciphers the tenth that the Fat Man will win in the 2025 Christmas Lottery. Although only chance rules here. It doesn’t get wet. The Christmas Draw is carried out using a system of two drums, with a manual mechanism, in which all the balls are identical, both in weight and size, so that they have exactly the same chance of winning. The prize is drawn from the first pot and the number to which it is associated is drawn from the second pot. The procedure for drawing the balls is completely random and, therefore, so is the winning number. The chance of getting it right is 0.001%. If you have ever tried to ask ChatGPT what the Gordo will be on December 22, its answer is what it should be: If you insist, he also repeats the same thing: “I cannot tell you with certainty what the winning number of the Spanish Christmas Lottery will be. And in fact no one can. The draw is designed to be totally random; each number from 00000 to 99999 has the same probability of being awarded.” He is not trying to sell us the bike and makes it very clear why: “although there are those who try to use theories, superstitions or even artificial intelligence to predict numbers, these methods have no real foundation: in the end, each number still has exactly 1 in 100,000 probabilities.” Finish singing. But, if we try to scratch a little more, it ends up showing a random number. If you give it a ‘prompt’ asking for a number based on a mathematical sample or taking into account the history of winning combinations, ChatGPT tells us that “I can give you a simulated number as a result of a fictitious statistical sample, but you must be clear that it does not increase your probabilities nor does it represent a real prediction.” And then, what was expected, his bet. In this case, 32,704. Of course, by trying to ask the same question in several different conversations, each time it offers a different answer. The ending doesn’t even have to match. It’s a totally random answer again. The new search engines. Chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini they are displacing search engines traditional when it comes to search for specific information on a topic or even a much longer explanation. Even Google itself he is taking it to the kitchen to change the way we interact with the internet. If before we asked Google what could be causing a headache or what could happen to us if we took an expired medication, now the quickest, simplest and most accessible way is to have a conversation with the AI ​​as a “know-it-all” to have the solution to all our questions and concerns. Even with those that have no answer, like Gordo’s winning number. A digital superstition. The infinite possibilities of AI are leading us to use it in quite peculiar ways. From have a romantic relationship with her until resorting to it to replace psychological therapy or even interact less with other humans. In the case of the lottery, just as there are gestures associated with good luck, such as passing the tenth over the belly of a pregnant woman or the figurine of a Virgin, asking ChatGPT to choose a number for us is a new digital superstition. Another space to which we have also opened the door to artificial intelligence, “just in case” is right. Cover image | Generated with Gemini In Xataka | We have become filled with digital superstitions. They are a horror for our productivity In Xataka | ChatGPT and the Christmas Lottery: what you can do with artificial intelligence and how to ask it for a prediction

let them start reading romance books

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At a time when more and more couples need schedule sex As if it were a work meeting, it would seem that romantic spontaneity is on the way to extinction. Routine, stress, children, screens and lack of time have pushed many people to live desire as a reminder on the calendar. And yet, in the midst of this sexual recession, thousands of readers are finding an unexpected spark in a place that years ago would have sounded almost naive: romance novels and, especially, the romanticasythe hybrid between romance and fantasy that dominates sales charts and social networks like BookTok. Reading, the new spark of desire. A growing number of women describe how their sex life was disappearing until they started reading romances. In a report for the New York Timesa reader commented that she and her husband went from having sex “twice a month” to “twice a day.” It wasn’t magic, he explained that reading worked as an emotional and physical trigger that they had not experienced in years. In Women’s Healthanother woman recounted how, after a chain of medical problems and stress, her libido evaporated… Until the novels helped her feel connected again with her eroticism and with her partner. The secret seems to be in the mix of what is written in this type of novel: magical worlds, growing sexual tension, complex female characters and explicit scenes that place their pleasure at the center. It is no coincidence that sexologists and therapists describe this type of readings as a “gym of the imagination” that reactivates reactive desire—that which does not appear alone, but with appropriate stimuli. It does not activate only the body: it first activates the mind, fantasy and emotion. What this boom reveals. Beyond the morbidity, the increase in popularity of these readings speaks of something deeper. According to TIMEromance novels allow you to explore desire from a safe place: without pressure, without expectations, without fear of judgment. They are a mental space where you can allow yourself to fantasize, recover the feeling of being desired and understand what truly excites you. For many women it is the first time they connect with their sexuality out of curiosity and not out of obligation. As detailed in Betchesthese stories work as a psychological warm-up, key in long-term couples where desire usually fades not due to lack of attraction, but due to lack of imagination and novelty. This “reactive desire” needs stimulation—and books offer it without shame. Furthermore, this explosion cannot be understood without the community. BookTok has converted these readings in public conversation: recommendations, rankings of spicetheories, private jokes, covers analyzed to the millimeter. A shared culture that has made talking about sex, desire or fantasies out loud normalized. Love in times of screens. We live in a culture that idealizes sexual spontaneitybut reality does not accompany. Endless schedules, mental loads, attention-sucking social networks and suffocating routines leave very little room for spark. In fact, studies point to a global decline in sexual frequency, especially between young couples. It is not that there is no desire: there is no time for it to appear. For this reason, many couples have started planning sex. Anticipation—flirty messages, relaxed dinners, screen-free space—works better than waiting for the flame to magically appear. In other words, planning does not kill desire, it protects it; and this is where romantic novels fit in: they create anticipation, they build tension, they reintroduce the game. They are, for many people, a way to feel something similar to the beginning of the relationship again. A revolution with nuances. However, several experts—from the NYT until ABC Australia— also warn of risks: idealizing perfect encounters, expecting synchronized orgasms or pressuring the partner to replicate fantasies that may not fit their relationship. Distinguishing between fantasy and real life, therapists remember, is key for this boom to be a help and not a source of frustration. In a world without time for desire, reading reignites it. What these stories demonstrate is not that fiction replaces reality, but that it inspires it. That sexuality does not disappear: it goes dormant. And that, for many people, these books offer something that was missing in their lives: mental time, emotional space, imagination, play, and the feeling of being seen and wanted. In an era of planned sex, exhausted desire, and frenetic routines, romance novels have shown that intimacy doesn’t need spontaneity: needs intention. Perhaps that is why this phenomenon does not stop growing. Not because it promises impossible orgasms, but because it restores—without haste, without judgment—the desire to love and be loved. As one reader confesses interviewed by Women’s Healththe key is not in dragons or vampires, but in something much simpler: “It’s not the books. It’s that they reminded me of who I was.” Image | Unsplash Xataka | Romantasy has become the most read genre in the world. According to its Spanish authors, there is not even

How to create a podcast from a text to study, investigate or simply listen if you don’t feel like reading

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Let’s explain How to create an audio from text wearing artificial intelligenceso that you can have a kind of podcast to study or review something when you do not feel like reading. Thus, instead of having to be reading a text, you can simply relax while listening. We are going to start the article with a series of previous tips and recommendations to take into account before putting the task. Then, we will tell you how you can do it with one of the best tools available for it, and we will continue with two ways to do it with assistants of AI as Chatgpt And some other alternative that is also interesting for Generate voice with artificial intelligence. Before starting, things to take into account Before starting to get to work with this, there are some things that you must take into account. First, you must define whether this audio or “podcast” that you want to create is educational, informative or only entertainment. Try too Be clear if you are going to listen to only you or also some other person, in order to polish how well finished it is. A written text does not always sound natural when you listen to it, especially when you have longer and somewhat intricate phrases. That is why it can be recommended that The phrases are short and close languagenot something that makes you heavy listening. In cases where you are going to be able to do it, Decide tone and voice stylechoosing between one more formal or informal. This may depend on the content you want to consume in audio, and also if you are going to listen to only you or other people. It is also recommended that You take care of the audio duration. The recommended duration may vary, because if it is something dense or to study it may be that from 20 minutes begin to get tired, but if it is for leisure or something narrative you should not have problems with longer durations. If it is something dense, try to segment the content well. And finally, Always check the result and do not be afraid to try again If you don’t convince you. Because sometimes the voices of AI may sound unnatural or there may be errors, and that is why it is important to check it even if it is a bit. In the end, The most important part is in the script That you will create to be narrated, and in this it is what you will have to spend most of the effort. Try to be natural, with good scores and well structured. Audios from your notes with notebooklm The first tool you can use is Notebooklm from Google, a service with which you can use artificial intelligence to organize your sources, and even Create an audio summary As if it were a podcast. It is a kind of chatgpt, but in which everything you do will be based on the sources you have added by hand. You can use notebooklm Through its official website or by mobile applications. The official website is Notebooklm.google.comor also in their apps In Google Play For Android and In the App Store For the iPhone. You can use it for free, but its payment version will give you more audio summaries. The first thing you should do with this tool is to create a notebook or work space. Inside, In the left column you can add sourceswhich are the files that the AI ​​will use to obtain the information. They can be text documents, slides, PDF, YouTube videos or links to web pages or online items. Once you have added the sources, Go to the section of Studiowhere the tool will create an audio summary of the content of all files. With this you will create your personal podcast To get information about everything you want. How can you do it with chatgpt and others AI Another option is to use a generative AI such as Chatgpt, COPILOT, Gemini either Deepseek. These tools They do not allow you to create a downloadable audio file although this is something you can do with other third -party tools. What you can do is listen directly to the AI ​​app. What you have to do is Create a summary script of an article. Then, this script can be heard directly in Chatgpt, Gemini or other platform, or take it to another AI that generates a downloadable audio. Let’s explain everything step by step. To start, you have to tell Chat GPT to make you summarize an article or a web page. For that, You must attach it and include the prompt or the instructions to generate your script. The article from which you want the summary can be included by uploading the text file or PDF, or directly putting the website. The prompt that we have used is as follows: “I want to create an audio to listen to a summary of the content of this website. I want you to generate the script to then copy and paste it into a program that passes from text to audio. The script has to be narrative, without structure, you simply have to write it to read it from there. (Link)” As you can see, in the prompt we have reiterated that the text generated by chatgpt It must be natural and should be read directlybecause sometimes if you do not mention it, you can tend to generate a script scheme with things to be filled, and what I want is to generate a text to copy and paste. Here, It is you who decides how and what do you want to make the summarybeing able to be one or several files that you raise or add. Just remember that Everything you upload or vintages will be saved on servers of the company that owns the AI, so be careful in the event that you are adding sensitive data that you … Read more

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