College students are showing up to class unprepared to read books. This includes students who attend community colleges and the high achievers at Ivy League institutions.
The problem starts before students step foot on campus. “For more than two decades, new educational initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and Common Core emphasized informational texts and standardized tests,” writes Rose Horowitch for the Atlantic. “Teachers at many schools shifted from books to short informational passages.”
Reading whole books, for pleasure or purely for knowledge and information, is a developed habit. If there is little practice in an educational setting and few incentives to do so, students aren’t likely to practice that habit on their own.
“Now the focus on reading analytically seems to be squashing that organic enjoyment,” author Katherine Marsh writes. “Critical reading is an important skill, especially for a generation bombarded with information … But this hyperfocus on analysis comes at a steep price: The love of books and storytelling is being lost.”
The ability to separate and absorb data is important, but consumption of the written word is so much more than that. Training oneself to read longer works is not dissimilar to working a muscle. It will only grow stronger and aid its owner in noticeable ways.
Thanks to smartphones, constant stimuli pull students’ attention in multiple directions. Access to all the information, social media, videos, movies, music, and more they want at any time does not help their focus. Their minds are drawn to immediate fulfillment online.
Unfortunately, this means focusing on non-screen stimuli in the form of books is not as easy as it was before this tech intrusion. Long-form reading requires commitment. The internet allows for instant gratification.
Given how easily distracted we can become, it’s no surprise there has also been a rise in ADHD diagnoses. Margaret Sibley, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, says “she and her colleagues have been ‘inundated’ with clients who don’t actually have ADHD,” according to Time. The combination of noticeable inattention and watching others share their ADHD stories online is partly to blame.
Another aspect of modern life that is diminishing is the ability to be bored or disconnected. Smartphones are always there to lure us away from the horror of having nothing to do. Removing technology from our lives, even for brief periods, and immersing in a non-electronic pastime such as reading has long-term benefits and exercises much-needed skills.
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The growing pains of college students who haven’t fostered an ability to read long texts will continue if K-12 teachers don’t incorporate that into instruction. It will also continue if young people don’t actively train themselves in this area. The onus can’t all be placed on the education system, the students, or even the smartphones. There are many avenues that contribute to this generational regression.
Still, it’s a glaring problem. It will take a combined effort, and even healthy pressure, to steer students in the right direction.
Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a contributing freelance columnist at the Freemen News-Letter.