The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books
ABC 203: On the decline of reading and what it means for our future
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This week’s article struck a nerve.
Perhaps it was because my success as an author depends on readers, or because I felt called out—while reading the 2,000-word article, I checked social media three times—but the fact that students at elite universities struggle to read entire books is unnerving.
In some ways, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. How could 250 pages of dead trees ever compete with the dopamine casinos of TikTok and YouTube? However, the question that stuck with me from the piece is whether professors—and, by extension, society at large—should adapt.
Should our literature classes change with the times and assign excerpts and poems that are digestible by Gen Z attention spans, or should we collectively put a stake in the ground and declare that this is not okay? This article book club curator is curious to hear what you think.
Here’s the piece: The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books
Warmly,
Simo
P.S. The song of the week is an instrumental track by Moondog, the musician and instrument inventor who famously lived on the streets of New York for three decades. The full songs of the week playlist is here.
Interesting article, sparked some reflection on what education is for. I think we're in an era, as the author noted, where higher education is tied to career prospects. If it's not a marketable skill, why spend valuable energy developing it? Why read a whole book when AI can read the book for you and give you the key takeaways?
In the possible future world where we've handed off more of our jobs to AI/technology, perhaps education will shift again - why learn technical skills when a robot can do it faster? We'll see a shift back to a curriculum that focuses on deep thinking and trying to understand the human condition.
I found this article poorly argued and wrote about it!
https://articleclub.substack.com/p/465-a-viral-article-i-disliked