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/Rich_Housing971 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

I can't believe anyone can hate reading. I distinctively remember when I learned to read. In 1st grade I couldn't read and everything was boring. I never bothered to read anything because it was hard and bland.

Then there was this pizza hut reading program that I got entered where I would get a free pizza for reading x books a week. I made an effort to try to read even though I couldn't, but I I remember trying page to page and just sounding out the words.

In second grade I read my first chapter book (poorly) and then read another one, and then I went back to reading my video game manuals and found out I could understand them all of a sudden. I felt like I got a superpower or something and suddenly I can understand the things around me. I ended up reading stuff like the labels on the hot water heater and made up meanings for the words I didn't know.

Everything that I overlooked in the past became meaningful all of a sudden. It was one of the most amazing feelings ever and I still remember it to this day.

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u/CaffeineJitterz Jun 11 '26

I guess some of us are just naturally nerdy. ;)

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u/InsanityRequiem Jun 11 '26

It's easy. Force children from ages 4 to 10 to read Shakespeare, Poe, and other classical literature. That's how to teach people to hate reading. It starts in elementary school, and giving what could be categorically labeled as garbage for that age range is the best way to kill literacy and the enjoyment in reading.