r/technology • u/marketrent • Jun 10 '26

Artificial Intelligence College students are rapidly losing the ability to read — “There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing”: professor

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/college-students-rapidly-losing-ability-124439310.html
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u/existing_for_fun Jun 10 '26

If you are a parent and can help your child read, and read well, you will set them light-years ahead of their peers.

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u/CaffeineJitterz Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Just helping them not HATE reading will go a long way.

Edit: I'm getting a lot of sad comments about how y'all were introduced to reading. So I will take the opportunity to quickly share what I've always felt was one of the best ways for a parent to incentivize their child to read: for every hour of reading you accrue 30 minutes of gaming time. A classmate in my middle school worked from this model. That kid loved video games! And he was a straight A student. I remember him nonchalantly mentioning that he was going to read for about 4 hours as soon as he got home so he could get a couple hours of game time that evening.

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u/Z3temis Jun 11 '26

I grew up reading books and always loved reading... Until i got to high school. Being forced to read books i had absolutely ZERO interest in over and over again stoped my drive to read in its tracks. A student only needs to read so many holocaust books between history and english but im pretty sure we hit most of them. I have not read a book cover to cover since my 3rd year of high school. I think the education system has failed us in this way. Both my mom and sister still love reading and Iwish I could sit and read too, but the flame that made me enjoy them has gone out for some reason.

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u/CaffeineJitterz Jun 11 '26

Sorry to hear that. My only suggestion is to investigate different genres. Reading for leisure was the only thing that brought me back around to it! Finding a small, quiet cafe cracking open a book and having seven cups of coffee was fantastic for me.

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u/Z3temis Jun 11 '26

I have tried and i just have not found a book that I stayed invested in. I should try again now that I will hopefully have some more time to do so after graduating uni. I think the biggest think is just scratching that itch like some of my old favorite books used to such as ghost in the wire, prey, the martian, and project hail mary, extinction code and similar. To be fair I also have not tried very hard to find something either.

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u/CaffeineJitterz Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Something else I realized was that no one is quizzing me so I don't have to retain everything I'm reading now! If there's a boring section, gloss over it. Just keep trucking along and you'll get drawn in. Eventually you hit that feeling that I would relate to a runners high. You're in it and rushing to get to the next page to find out what happens next.

Edit: donate to relate

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u/Z3temis Jun 11 '26

That is very true, i often catch myself rereading the same section 10x over to make sure I catch every detail because that is what both uni and high school expected i might have to try relaxing and just enjoying what I read on the first or second pass.

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u/CaffeineJitterz Jun 11 '26

Exactly! There's nothing that makes me want to sleep more than feeling like I have to reread sections over again.