The generation that doesn't read

Publicado por Orranis

One thing that suddenly irked me about this topic was the title, the 'generation' that doesn't read. While I agree that not enough people like reading, or even read at all, but that's not specific to our generation. In general, the world has the lowest rates of illiteracy of any given moment in our history. This isn't a new problem. More people are reading than ever before, and presumably by extension more are enjoying it. It's still a problem, but I don't think anyone has a right to say "You darned kids, back in my day everybody read! And they liked it too!"

Publicado por Monday

The occaisional "find a book you might like and read it" assignments can push the envelope but I really think that picking up books is more a skill you learn at home or on your own.

These were always my favorite moments in English classes. We were allowed to pick a book and write an essay of some sort on them. One time I did Halo: Contact Harvest, and another time I did Dead Space: Martyr.

They were both the highest scoring essays I ever wrote in school.

Heh, once my English teacher let us pick whatever topic we wanted to write an essay on.

So I picked why WH40K was the coolest and most original Sci Fi setting in popular culture today. It proceeded to be entered into a contest and winning fourth place of 50.

I was like: "..."

"You all know I wrote this as a joke, right?"

Publicado por gnomerdon

I did a full book report with a 15 minute presentation on a book of my choice..... We were given 8 weeks to work on it, and it only took me 4 hours. I didn't read one single page from the book. I went online, read the summary, and used that for my speech.

=)

Publicado por Adamsm

Publicado por gnomerdon

yes, amen to that.

Publicado por 138638

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Publicado por 91604

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Publicado por gamerunknown

and whether people bother to read the first page of the thread before posting, presumably. :p

Publicado por Atik

Exe, I am sort of disagreeing.

I don't like Ebooks. I don't like reaing off a computer monitor.

I read fan-fics, yes. But I print them out. I hook up my printer and make a small book to read them from. I then either throw the trash stories out, or save them if they are good.

I can't read Ebooks, I just can't do it. I don't know, but something about reading page-fulls off of a screen drives me insane. It is why I have trouble reading essays and stuff online or anything.

Publicado por gnomerdon

I personally think MUCH more is because of the media. The media, in MY experience, portrays that reading sucks and it's the last thing you want to do. So every time I open a book, I get the same feeling as "Jade" does in Jackie Chan adventures.

Reading books in my generation was almost FROWNED upon.

Publicado por xaratherus

Someone mentioned Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 earlier.

Perhaps it's the cynic in me, but every time that I look around I see us moving further and further in the direction of that "condense it, boil it down, don't make us think" sort of society. :P

I think that the "choose what you want to read" method of study is a good educational tool when used in moderation. But - and I'll admit, I haven't read books in the Halo series and so on - do they really challenge you in any way? How much do they really make you think? Does Master Chief pontificate on how the death of a single man is the death of the world? Somehow I doubt it.

So by all means, let kids in school select some of the stuff that they read - but at some point, just like physical exercise, you have to have some sort of challenge tossed at you, or you're never going to grow.

The generation that doesn't read

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