People seem to forget most of what they read, and they mostly don’t notice
It seems that most people can remember only a few high-level details of a book weeks later—if that. A typical reader might spend hours finishing some serious non-fiction—then maybe it comes up at a dinner party, and they find you can remember like three sentences. Basically no detailed recall. Barely the gist! What’s more: people seem surprised when this happens. They seem to consistently overestimate how much they’re absorbing from a book. Perhaps this is because of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
References
- Matushak, Andy. Andy’s Notes: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes?stackedNotes=z4SDCZQeRo4xFEQ8H4qrSqd68ucpgE6LU155C&stackedNotes=zg3fYweZpbHeBTpcYke5mF4ZfrJutYcQEtFo&stackedNotes=z432siNjuY9G8bTsnSugyHPB1YoZWgup6eMB3&stackedNotes=z3d6dFhTA5zTmykZ3zh4Y2vCw3aVbUxRiQQcc.