North American kids are stupid
You know what’s a good question? Why American kids hate books. Even though I can already hear you scrolling angrily to the comment section to inform me of how popular Harry Potter is. I would like you to save your breath because Harry Potter does not count as literature.
Mike Elgan over at ComputerWorld has written an article about how cellphones might save books. Apparently people don’t read anymore. Apparently reading is boring. Obviously you still enjoy reading, otherwise I don’t know what to make of you reading this.
The summary is that kids in North America are lazy, stupid and spoiled. We spend way too much time talking on our cellphones, kill way too many gray cells on the weekend and procrastinate way too much while we try to unlock more achievements on our XBOX 360. We are stupid and we don’t care.
The decline in reading habits of kids and teenagers of North America isn’t a disjoint problem. The causes are likely very intertwined with the current state of our society. Here is what young people say about books.
Kids also hate books because public schools make books boring by assigning chapters to read and setting due dates. Reading books at one’s own pace is the only way to read books well.
We tend to hate books because the curriculum is based on dumbed down books, that offer little of excitement to the newer generation. There are so many books out there that work your mind, make you use intellect, etc. Instead, they insist on putting drab and mundane material that make kids want to tear their hair out.
What is common between those two opinions? The blame is external. “Its the public schools, blame them. I’m perfect, I love learning, doing homework and book reports.” Why not just call things as they are. Why must we always bullshit and pretend. The problem is there is no drive to succeed. All that we seek is stimulation, without stimulus we think things are not worth much. Life is difficult and has to be made difficult. Even if it means reading literary classics which you may not particularly enjoy. The only way we can learn and grow is through difficulty. Life is given meaning through the obstacles we hurdle. However if you aspire to be like Paris Hilton then perhaps reading books would be detrimental to your success.
Obviously it doesn’t help the cause when idolized idiots like Steve Jobs criticize services that are meant to keep books alive in a soon-to-be very digital age. I’d be surprised to find out that Steve has cracked a book open in the last decade. There are so many people to blame and I have so little energy to criticize them all.
At the end of the day, it’s all kind of a trend. Kids don’t read so much these days because their parents either didn’t or don’t either. Everybody is too focused on finding out what happens to Britney Spears this week, to care.
It’s a good thing you and I are still interested in mental progress.
Filed under: Education | 5 Comments
Let’s start with: books are the number one most sold item on the internet. Conclude what you want from that, but it is quite evident from this fact that books are by far not yet out of favor with the public, be it kids, teens, or adults. Harry Potter IS a book, and so are the many other bestsellers that keep companies like Amazon and Chapters highly profitable – there is simple a great demand for books.
As for ‘reading’ and XBOX: It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and technology enabled us to fit well over 30 of those pictures (‘frames’) per second in a movie/video. It is therefore not surprising most people prefer to spend more time watching movies or playing XBOX, where they can easily receive a much higher content of information/ data/ stimulus per second, comparatively to books. It is simply the natural choice; whether you want to learn something new or to just have fun, there are other, more efficient methods than books.
If you’re going to throw around facts like “most sold item on the internet”, better reference that!
You may be right that Harry Potter is indeed a book but like I said, it is not literature. It is not timeless and carries virtually no universal message. On the other hand, people shouldn’t feel bad if they have read or liked Harry Potter. I’m just trying to get the point across that reading Harry Potter does not really have any impact on one’s intellect. At least not on a scale that requires seven books, movies and billions of dollars.
I agree that it is not surprising, but it is disappointing that people are becoming more and more dependent on a stimulus storm in order to maintain interest in something. So having something in 30 frames per second does not make it efficient (quite the opposite in fact). I could probably argue in favour of books for a whole essay, but the truth is that people are like crack addicts. Living from fix to fix, waiting to be stimulated without any effort on their part. Books are quite the opposite, they require effort to be enjoyed. And the idea that enjoyment and stimulus can only be extracted through effort and imagination is a dieing truth.
I agree with your argument that kids don’t care enough to read and educate themselves on their own. It seems the youth generation is pre-occupied with having information be given to them by means that are impossible to ignore, ie: Hollywood movies, media portrayals and mainstream advertisements. Its disconcerting to know that if this trend continues and kids continue to refrain from seeking out information that our society will become even more endowed with people that believe what they see and never challenge those thoughts.
As someone who was reading classics such as “Jane Eyre” in 3rd grade, at my own impetus, I am firmly on the side of reading as a means of both education and entertainment. What you read as a child can certainly affect your world view, and help mold your personality, amongst other ways, by presenting characters that you can admire; and learn from them how to deal with problems. I hate to think how I’d have turned out with Hollywood or television characters as my sole role models. . .
As re Harry Potter as literature, I think you should consider that the majority of what is considered literature or classic was originally written for an adult audience. If you start trying to judge children’s literature based on the criteria of literature intended for adults, then pretty much all children’s and young adult books are not going to qualify. But reading the series as an adult, I enjoyed the whole Harry Potter series, even as I was studying for my degree in literature, and reading “real” literature. Does it compare to Jane Eyre? Little does, to me. But compared to some of the junk I read as a kid that was intended for kids, it is leaps and bounds more intelligent, complex, and satisfying.
Apparently the stimulus of movies and television isn’t enough for teen-agers, either – how many times have I sat in a movie theater trying to watch a movie while one or more teens sitting around me spend nearly the entire time texting to a friend? It’s not just reading that cell phones are killing, it’s courtesy, attention span, and socialization within the larger context of society, not just one’s immediate circle of friends.
Hey i totally agree with you on this one! To this day there are books I refuse to open because there as some sort of assignment tied to it. However, any book outside of the realm of “the school library” is and will always be totally awesome in every way. Harry Potter isn’t literature its a TV show written down into books to disguise itself as “reading”. Every kid under the age of 12 has two things in their backpacks: Harry Potter and a Game Boy.