domyseeI Quit. The Clankers Won
Picking out my favorite idea out of many: we do need ways to stay mentally sharp in the age of AI. Writing and publishing is a good one. I also recommend stimulating human conversations and long-form reading.
More and more the bar is being lowered. Don’t fall to brain rot. Don’t quite quit. Stay active and engaged, and you’ll begin to stand out among your peers.
I can confidently say that, yes, reading helps a lot. My mental model has shifted a bit that words are cheap (printing -> writing -> typing -> generating) and that we should accept there is something like high quality text.
I haven't really been a reader, but I can definitely notice when a book/text is "hard". I'm currently reading the old testament, and I understand very little (even the oxford one that has a lot of annotations is hard for me). I like this, because its a measurement of what I don't know (if that makes sense).
For the first time in quite a while, I've started reading a challenging, non-computer book ("The New Testament in its World").
I'm trying to decide if my attention span has atrophied, or if I'm just more aware now of my ADD.
Either way, I'm hopeful that my attention span for this kind of reading will grow with practice.
I too have noticed my attention span having atrophied. It was pre-AI, at least for me. Post-internet, though.