New Generation of Less is More Reading

We are shifting into a world where reading is old technology. Books used to be the new technology, but throughout the many years, they have been replaced by a newer technology. We’ve slowly started to try and condense our readings into smaller summaries and we are now bringing that into schools. In literature classes instead of reading books, articles are now introduced, and small paragraphs. News articles are shortened, and summarized in neat packages. We are even learning to read differently, and because of this our society may never be the same. We are passing these new reading habits on to the next generation. Instead of tackling a whole book, we are teaching students to pull out the vital information by skimming and scanning pages out of order. I myself even notice that I will quickly glance to the end of the page or book prematurely to find out what happens in the end. It is almost as if the constant instantaneousness experienced in my life has left me with no self control to wait and read a book in consequential order. We are a generation of impatience and we are passing that on to a generation that will soon require even more immediacy.

“Over time, the ephemeral, immediate quality of this constant stream of images undermines the self-control required to engage with the written word. And so we find ourselves in the position of living in a highly literate society that chooses not to exercise the privilege of literacy—indeed, it no longer views literacy as a privilege at all.” Christine Rosen

If this continues, children now will grow up to be adults without the skill of reading, but instead the skill of skimming and summarizing. Instead of reading something and taking their own thoughts away from a reading, they will be left with words haphazardly read and barely understood.

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One Response to New Generation of Less is More Reading

  1. Jordan Hicks says:

    Very precise. We have been groomed into reading only the bare essentials and add on top of your topic here the idea of E-books and reading content from websites instead of physical books, and you add the ability to literally search the page for a word or phrase without even looking for it yourself. The computers do all the work and whats left is a person who barely understands the lesson/content and so long as they receive the passing grade or approval (i.e. instant gratification) they don’t even mind that they haven’t learned anything.

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