This post at RealClearMarkets by A. J. Rice caught my eye because it touches on one of my recurring themes. He opens with an anecdote, the first about the “Lost Generation” that included Fitzgerald and Hemingway among others and then with this one:
Apparently, Gen-Z doesn’t read.
Even college students. Especially college students.
How does one learn without reading? Without even paying attention.
University of Tennessee Associate Professor Kenyon Wilson found out just how many of his students were reading – and paying attention.
Which was none of them.
Within the course syllabus he provided to every one of his music seminar students were instructions to open a locker – within which the professor had placed a crisp $50 bill. It was easy money. Free money. Isn’t that what young people want? Free stuff? No strings attached. The locker number – and combination – were provided. All a student had to do was open it. It was a minimal effort exercise.
But that was predicated on their reading about it.
The instructions to the free-and-easy money were embedded within the text, as follows:
“Thus (free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five) students may be ineligible to make up classes . . .â€
Right there, in black and white.
But you had to look to see.
And no one did.
Going on to lament:
Those who do not read, who do not pay attention – who think they already know – do not learn differently. Or more. They cannot learn. They are inert, in stasis.
How then can they think?
The answer, of course, is that many do not. They feel – and react, based upon those feelings. Without thinking – the thinking being done for them, by those who have learned the value of thoughtlessness and passivity.
That’s completely consistent with something I have posted about here from time to time, i.e. visualcy. “Literate” does not mean you can read the words on a page. It means you derive information by reading. Increasingly, people today are not literate but visual. They obtain information from images, pictures, graphs, and videos.
I don’t entirely agree with him. People who are visual rather than literate are able to learn but they do learn differently. They tend to follow authorities (“influencers”). They find it difficult to follow or comprehend logical arguments or deductive reasoning. They tend to perceive things as a whole. They are more agonistic in their expression.
Where I agree with him is that I don’t think it bodes well for the future and particularly liberal democracy in the future.
There is a counter-argument. How do you reconcile the fact that the Harry Potter books sold a half billion copies with the claim that young people don’t read? My response to that is that there are 8 billion people in the world, about half of them in the target audience for the Harry Potter books. That’s almost 4 billion young people. It’s completely possible for substantial book sales and young people not reading both to be true.
Someone pointed out that often the syllabus is like reading a cellphone agreement. If it is a recurring course someone from the year before will have reduced and simplified it. So this could just be a professor not really knowing what his students are doing. There are better ways to know that kids are probably reading less and there is literature to suggest it is true.
I dont think that many kids were real readers when I was young. Mostly the nerds and geeky types were reading books. Another bunch read comic books or popular magazines. I can certainly see kids reading less now because many seem so much busier. A lot of kids seem to have multiple sports going on, music classes, dance classes and other activities. Parents are drivers.
Steve
Why read?
Beyond getting passing marks,
Being educated has limited benefits.
Having read and absorbed the classics, Latin, would that give someone a better insight into dealing with say, the Russian-Ukrainian situation than gut feelings?
I am one today who doubts learning for learning’s sake.
Trump would know the leverage without knowing Latin.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/liberals-read-conservatives-watch
If you want to discuss reading.
I laughed when I read that piece about liberals reading more than conservatives, who “watch TV.†Somehow, I don’t think the partisan inclinations of people have much to do with their love of or abstentions from reading.
Growing up I would find an author and literally check out every book from the library, exhausting all books written by that author – then find another one whose words I could devour. When our son was growing up I usually ran most book and science fairs – always negotiating with the supplier to upgrade what they sent us, as we were one of the most diverse, poorest, and consequently neglected schools in the district. Today I’m always carrying my tablet around so I can read articles, a kindle book and so on.
When our son was born my husband and I read books or made up verbal stories, on the fly, when he was an infant. Whether or not this had any impact on his devotion to reading, he, nevertheless, became a life long avid reader – sometimes reading 5 books at a time. His library is so extensive that he stores much of it in our office, as it doesn’t fit in the apartment he shares with roommates. BTW, he’s a millennial. And, I trend conservative, especially these days with such an out of control social progressive agenda leading us over the edge.
I agree with Steve that the syllabus experiment doesn’t really tell us much about reading generally.
Two of my three kids are avid readers. Our middle boy, not so much. That doesn’t seem too different from when I was growing up.
As for me, my reading habits have changed considerably with the internet. I’ve always had a preference for non-fiction and nowadays, probably 95% of what I read is online.
Speaking of following influencers, and finding it difficult to follow or comprehend logical arguments or deductive reasoning. What kind of person would cite this:
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/liberals-read-conservatives-watch
Unless it was a joke.
Someone who thought it was funny enough to get a rise out of someone else. Especially since this is the conservative hero leading the charge against CRT who has become so popular and has to listen to the arguments made by liberals and conservatives in response to his claims.
Steve
Might as well read Henry Potter, it’s the end of the world.
https://www.kfornow.com/syndicated-article/?id=1376130