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The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University's required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they're assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames's students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.

the future is r-slurred :marseygigaretard: :marseybrainlet: :marseyfoidretard: :marseyspecial: :marseyretard2: :marseydramautist: :marseyshitforbrains: :marseyretard3: :marseystroke: :marseyawardretard:

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Even 20 years ago math-chads were reading more and better literature for fun than average liberal-arts-cels for their major. It's just IQ.

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It's social media. Tik Tok and Youtube and Reddit and Facebook have unironically fried everyones brain in a manner to which long form literature is almost impossible to appreciate or engage with anymore. The quick dopamine hits are just too attractive.

I used to read several books a week when I was a teen, real literature too out of sheer curiosity. Then I got a computer with internet access at 16 and it was all downhill from there. These days I hardly read at all, maybe a couple of books a year. At most I listen to audio books like an r-slur.

And I have the advantage of being good at reading long form literature, I got so much practice in during my childhood and teens that it's quick and easy. Coming up with 24/7 smartphone access and a constant feed of brainrot right into your hands would make even developing those skills almost impossible.

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:marseyhesright: Technology is to blame and we need to destroy it all. AT MINIMUM, how lame is it that middling nerds (codecels) have taken over society and are rapidly taking over and defining political discourse as well? Give me real nerds or give me chads, but I will not stand for this any longer. :grug:

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https://i.rdrama.net/images/17278647499407973.webp

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https://i.rdrama.net/images/17278272565106156.webp

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I agree. Internet addiction needs to be treated as seriously as any other drug or alcohol addiction. I tried to disconnect and I was practically crashing the entire week without wasting time on the internet. The crash was bad enough to make me feel confident that we should refer to internet usage on a daily basis outside of as a tool as a real and serious addiction that scrambles your brain as long as you keep at it.

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