Elite College College Students Who Can't Read Books

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I realize times have changed. The last semester in which I taught undergrads was in 1989, I think. Yet this is quite sobering:

Not everybody has an Atlantic Monthly subscription so here are a few excerpts:

Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

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And yet, “I think there is a phenomenon that we’re noticing that I’m also hesitant to ignore.” Twenty years ago, Dames’s classes had no problem engaging in sophisticated discussions of Pride and Prejudice one week and Crime and Punishment the next. Now his students tell him up front that the reading load feels impossible. It’s not just the frenetic pace; they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.

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We grew up in an era where book reading was a necessity.

Today’s youth are in a world where reading the screen of a smart phone is what is needed.

Other changes – more people are using audio-books rather than print books, and increasingly people are watching videos instead of reading articles.

Sometimes progress looks more like regress.

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I’ve compared young people’s use of smartphone apps where everything is very short text messages and small images to seeing the world through a keyhole.

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Or perhaps rather like the Tralfamadorians imagined Billy Pilgrim: strapped to the bed of a railcar with a long pipe to view through as the train moves along.

I tell my daughter that the handful of people who prove to be relatively immune to this stuff may own the world of the future. Of course, just as likely, they will be set fire in their own beds by the people who do NOT prove to be relatively immune to this stuff.

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Interesting. Both of my grandparents on my mother’s side were Tralfamadorian (Reformed Poughkeepsie Synod.) But non-practicing.

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