Why doesn't my generation enjoy reading?

[sonataro]

Honestly I think children in my age group should read every now and again. Yet we ( people at my school ) no longer have access to a library. Our school has been torn down for reconstruction so now we rarely ever get a chance to go to the library. The library is my favorite place of all ( well except for science class I rather enjoy science. ). Lat year in my "reading" class we practiced no reading skills. She just told us to study life in one of her books. I really didn't appreciate it, the fact I wasn't learning anything I didn't already know. I love to learn new things. Things about the world, things about the past, new trends in book writing. I loved the Hunger Games. Read all three books in a month or so. I loved how it was phrased as though it was not past tense. It's the very first time i'd ever seen that! I thought it was cool. But I'm now off topic. I think some kids just don't take the opertunity of the hard way everyone wants to take the easy way, myself included, I see now that the easy way will get me basically no where so I push myself to strive. I read and I try my hardest at everything I do. I even took up band and found out I love the Saxophone. So I think society is not only at blame here, the kids are too. They put popularity over everything. I remember a girl walked up to me and told me I was lame, I wasn't popular and no one liked me. I let that get to me, but then I relized, there were a lot of other kids who didn't want to be popular so instead of dropping my studies I hung out with people that accepted me. If children would put beside petite matters, they may appreciate literature.

 

[Gita V.Reddy]

I let that get to me, but then I relized, there were a lot of other kids who didn't want to be popular so instead of dropping my studies I hung out with people that accepted me.

You have taken the right step because you cannot sustain a friendship / relationship by pretending to be something you are not. Best of luck with everything, including your studies.

 

[Meadow337]

You have taken the right step because you cannot sustain a friendship / relationship by pretending to be something you are not. Best of luck with everything, including your studies.

agreed!

 

[Dmitri Dmitriev]

Sorry for writing this so late but...

Well if you view reading as 'work' then I guess it will be. If however your attitude is different, then you might regard it as fun and I think at a certain point in a person's life they can no longer blame school or whatever for their attitudes. Books educate, elevate, and entertain. And the rewards are longer lasting than the instant gratification ADD generation brought up on a diet of instant everything can appreciate until / unless they decide to take responsibility for their own selves and discover books for themselves, for their own enjoyment and enlightenment.

Hmm... I didn't mean it as "work." I just meant that it takes more time and effort than most other pleasure activities, and sometimes that's enough to turn people off and away to go do something else. I agree that people should discover books for themselves, but like trying new food, if you didn't like cabbage the first time, what are the chances that you'll even try anything made with cabbage again just to see if you like it? (First impressions and all...)

Why should a greater proportion of functionally literate people affect written language..?

I hope that wasn't rhetorical because... the more people that are literate, the more people who will read/write. Combine that with modern technology, and there are millions (Hundreds of millions? Billions!?) of people who are reading/writing all the time, on a global network, who popularize new words (or abbreviations) to be used in new media.
(Maybe it is a global conspiracy , but it's not one created by children. Isn't it really the adults that make poor writing and bad spelling acceptable?... Then again, as unbelievable as it is (Mr. Wilson), all adults were children once...)

The internet and higher literacy rates also means that language is changing faster than it did before. Maybe it hasn't happened yet (maybe it already has), but given a few decades time internet slang/abbreviations will become acceptable words; as new words are added to dictionaries and obsolete ones removed.
And maybe, if we (hopefully it's unlikely) ever fall that far Meadow, your nightmare will come true and we'll have entire books written in IM. As horrifying as it is, won't the new generation simply think it normal? (When/if that happens, it would be just dandy because the only people complaining would be old farts who can't get with it.)

 

[Meadow337]

Hmm I think that politeness like good spelling and grammar will never go out of fashion and that some of us 'old farts' might take exception to being called 'old farts'. And some of us do 'get' it. Can read it. And even type it, but we still know our spelling and can string a complete sentence together.There is a profound difference between knowing the correct way and then chosing to use a shorthand to express yourself in a limited space and refusing to learn how to do it the 'long' way.

 

[Meadow337]

And this:

"Mine iz a lng & a :-( tale!" sed d Mouse, turniN 2 Alice, & sighing.
"It iz a lng tail, certainly," sed Alice, l%kin dwn w 1Dr @ d Mouse's tail; "but Y do U caL it sad?" & she kept on puzzling bout it whIl d :O~ wz speaking, so dat her idea of d tale wz somTIN lIk this:—
"Fury sed 2
a mouse, dat
he met
n d
house,
'Let us
both go
2 law:
I wiL
prosecute
you.—
Come, I'll
tAk n
denial;
We must
hav a
trial:
4
rly
DIS
morn
I've
Nuttin
2 do.'
sed d
:O~ 2
d cur,
'Such a
trial,
dEr sir,
w n
jury o
judge,
wud b
wasting
our breath.'
'I'll b
judge,
I'll b
jury,'
sed
cunning
old Fury;
'I'll try
d whol
cause,
&
condemn
U
2
death.' "

Will never be as lyrical or as beautiful as this:

 

[Conscious Bob]

I hope that wasn't rhetorical because... the more people that are literate, the more people who will read/write. Combine that with modern technology, and there are millions (Hundreds of millions? Billions!?) of people who are reading/writing all the time, on a global network, who popularize new words (or abbreviations) to be used in new media.
(Maybe it is a global conspiracy , but it's not one created by children. Isn't it really the adults that make poor writing and bad spelling acceptable?... Then again, as unbelievable as it is (Mr. Wilson), all adults were children once...)

Ah, us proles have exchanged our bonfires and pitchforks for smartphones...

 

[Dmitri Dmitriev]

Hmm I think that politeness like good spelling and grammar will never go out of fashion and that some of us 'old farts' might take exception to being called 'old farts'. And some of us do 'get' it. Can read it. And even type it, but we still know our spelling and can string a complete sentence together.There is a profound difference between knowing the correct way and then chosing to use a shorthand to express yourself in a limited space and refusing to learn how to do it the 'long' way.

Hmm... Well, I think good spelling and grammar, like politeness, is often sacrificed for the sake of efficiency. One does it all the time when texting, right? But this "language shift" as a result of new technology has already bled into our spoken language (and only in the past half century too!). That's just a few more steps from being written down and published. And while I don't seriously think anything written completely in IM could ever be published, a few words have already slipped through the cracks. (I saw the word "pwn" in a comic book... then again it was a comic book. Omg and lol have been added to the Oxford dictionary (among who knows what else). And I see magazines (trashy rags, but still) that re-appropriate the use of cuss words by replacing a few letters with asterisks.) What's to say in another 50 years (as opposed to the centuries it has taken previous generations) our spelling, diction, and grammar won't change too, and be accepted by society as not only normal but (god forbid) scholarly.

By the way, I didn't really mean much by the old farts. Just the stereotype of the elderly's opinions never properly considered because they're always reminiscing about the olden days when things were good and green, and they rant about how kids get stupider every year, and they're just going to die soon any way, so why bother doing things the same when there are better ways.

 

[Meadow337]

Dimitri, you may think you meant "nothing" by using "old fart" but then promptly demonstrated your familiarity with it as a pejorative. I think you will find that sacrificing politeness will get you nowhere fast and that there are exceptionally few circumstances in which it will ever be acceptable to be rude.

 

[Sparhawk]

Hmm... Well, I think good spelling and grammar, like politeness, is often sacrificed for the sake of efficiency. One does it all the time when texting, right? But this "language shift" as a result of new technology has already bled into our spoken language (and only in the past half century too!). That's just a few more steps from being written down and published. And while I don't seriously think anything written completely in IM could ever be published, a few words have already slipped through the cracks. (I saw the word "pwn" in a comic book... then again it was a comic book. Omg and lol have been added to the Oxford dictionary (among who knows what else). And I see magazines (trashy rags, but still) that re-appropriate the use of cuss words by replacing a few letters with asterisks.) What's to say in another 50 years (as opposed to the centuries it has taken previous generations) our spelling, diction, and grammar won't change too, and be accepted by society as not only normal but (god forbid) scholarly.

By the way, I didn't really mean much by the old farts. Just the stereotype of the elderly's opinions never properly considered because they're always reminiscing about the olden days when things were good and green, and they rant about how kids get stupider every year, and they're just going to die soon any way, so why bother doing things the same when there are better ways.

Well IMO as an old, or is it young, fart I do think that...

1. My generation if not in fact stupider than in years past, definitely need to use the brains that they were given a whole lot more.

2. If bad spelling and grammar do become "normal" then I certainly will be boycotting any and all books written like that.

3. There should always be a certain amount of politeness regardless of to whom or how you are speaking.

 

[Dmitri Dmitriev]

Dimitri, you may think you meant "nothing" by using "old fart" but then promptly demonstrated your familiarity with it as a pejorative. I think you will find that sacrificing politeness will get you nowhere fast and that there are exceptionally few circumstances in which it will ever be acceptable to be rude.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant no offence to anyone on the forum. I was, in fact, using it as a crude way to denote older persons who have difficulty adapting to the most recent of recent modern conventions. Maybe that was wrong of me. Apologies.

And I agree with you. I know how important politeness is. Good manners, like language, is the mark of a culturally sophisticated individual. But both have changed (and will change) and the parameters of what is deemed "good" and "bad" manners are changing too. (I could have used bags, or even baggage if I wanted to be cruel. I just thought farts were funny... and I still do.)
Maybe it's only my opinion, but there are a lot of areas in life where I would prefer the cold slap of bureaucracy to the genteel serenade of manners... Then again, the opposite is also true.

Well IMO as an old, or is it young, fart I do think that...

1. My generation if not in fact stupider than in years past, definitely need to use the brains that they were given a whole lot more.

2. If bad spelling and grammar do become "normal" then I certainly will be boycotting any and all books written like that.

3. There should always be a certain amount of politeness regardless of to whom or how you are speaking.

1) I agree, if anything they're getting smarter (kinda). Even if they can't spell properly, or do mental math, their problem solving abilities are phenomenal! (I give myself a pat on the back.)

2) By all means, please do... but you might be dead by then. Hopefully, I will too.

3) [see above]

 

[Meadow337]

Apology accepted

 

[hay82]

If we talk teenage generation and use my 15 year old nephew as an example, something that's probably very very unwise, then a better question would be when he's supposed to find the time to read. With Facebook, Twitter, texting, emails, snapchat and whatever else social he has got going on and a phone that gives him access to it every waking hour. For that generation there seems to be such a high expectation that you can be reached 24/7 and I just wonder how these kids learn being alone long enough to read a book.

To me reading is something I do when I'm alone and how much I read is directly related to how much I'm able to be alone during a day. The last few years that has been very limitied, so much so that I only get to read work related tech books and have been reading Les Miserables since before Christmas last year.

So I think the problem for teenagers is that, for many, reading is a time consuming task that doesn't pay of within the first five minutes, so it's already difficult for them to approach and with the constant interruptions from the phones and the call of the internet, then they never really get into reading and never learn how amazing spending an entire day just reading a book can be.

For those around 30 I think the problem is still the lure of things like Facebook and fear of being disconnected for even a short while. I can feel this myself even today when I sit down to read and I'm not even on Facebook. There's so many more distractions today that 15 years ago and reading just takes time to get into.

 

[Meadow337]

I have a profoundly simple solution for that problem - switch everything off!

 

[hay82]

Just not something that's easy for a teenager and will be seen as a punishment if done by a parent. For those like me who are 30 it's much easier, but you still have to fight that social pressure to always be on.

 

[Meadow337]

nonetheless it is, in all practical terms, the only solution. Personally I don't understand either the attraction or the addiction. I don't use FB and had a twitter account very briefly and rapidly lost interest in reading an endless list of 'I had ... for lunch/ supper' messages. I have better things to do like read a book

 

[hay82]

Another solution is to just ignore it and read a book.

I'd say you probably do understand some of the attraction, not to Facebook, but to forums. Member for 6 months and 2,475 posts suggests that you do like the social aspect and apply this to a love of reading. I think the hard part is understanding the addiction. Why did my nephew almost cry because his phone was locked and he had to go without it from about 10 pm until 9 am, time he most likely spend sleeping anyway. That's addiction and I don't get how.

 

[Meadow337]

There is a difference between the interaction on a forum and 'the just put it out there'-ness of other social media. Even if you get responses there is still little genuine back and forth conversation taking place and the entire medium seems to lend itself to the utterly inane.

 

[Sparhawk]

And boring...

 

[hay82]

There is a difference between the interaction on a forum and 'the just put it out there'-ness of other social media. Even if you get responses there is still little genuine back and forth conversation taking place and the entire medium seems to lend itself to the utterly inane.

Quite true and having an entire generation so hooked on those platforms could very well leed to a generation of very shallow people.