this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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Yes, but that number is getting smaller. Where I live, most households rarely have a full bookshelf, and instead nearly every member of the family has a "smart" phone; they'll grab the chance to use anything that would be easier than spending hours going through a lot of books. I do sincerely hope methods of doing good research are still continually being taught, including the ability to distinguish good information from bad.
Internet (via your smartphone) provides you with the ability to find any book, magazine or paper on any subject you want, for free (if you're willing to sail under the right flag), within seconds. Of course noone has a full bookshelf anymore, the only reason to want physical books nowadays is sentimentality or some very specific old book that hasn't been digitized yet (but in that case you won't have it on your bookshelf and will have to go to the library anyway). The fastest and most accurate way of doing research today is getting a gist on Wikipedia, clicking through the source links and reading those, and combing through arxiv and scihub for anything relevant. If you are unfamiliar with the subject as a whole, you download the relevant book and read it. Of course noone wants to comb through physical books anymore, it's a complete waste of time (provided of course they have been digitized).