How Gen Z Came to See Books as a Waste of Time
An alarming phenomenon has sprung up over the past few years: Many students are arriving at college unprepared to read entire books. That’s a broad statement to make, but I spoke with 33 professors at some of the country’s top universities, and over and over, they told me the same story. As I noted in my recent article on the topic, a Columbia professor said his students are overwhelmed at the thought of reading multiple books a semester; a professor at the University of Virginia told me that his students shut down when they’re confronted with ideas they don’t understand. Criticizing young people’s literacy is a pastime that stretches back centuries, but in the past decade, something seems to have noticeably shifted. Most of the professors I spoke with said they’ve seen a generational change in how their students engage with literature.
Why is this happening? The allure of smartphones and social media came up, and it appears that many middle and high schools are teaching fewer full books. (One student arrived at Columbia having read only poems, excerpts, and news articles in school.) But one possible cause that I nodded to in my article is a change in values, not ability. The problem does not appear to be that “kids these days” are incurious or uninterested in reading. Instead, young people might be responding to a cultural message: Books just aren’t that important.
