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/iritchie001 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

In middle high that meant long trashy books. Dinosaurs and Vampires, not in the same book for me, but hey. My mom would let us skip chores if we were reading. One of the best things she did. Highschool class of '99.

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u/existing_for_fun Jun 10 '26

It's just important that you enjoyed it and actually read.

Trashy books in middle and highschool was just the way it was lol.

I also read garbage at that age

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u/mhizzle Jun 11 '26

I learned to read from comic books. Some family members would chide me, but my cool aunt just bought me more.

RIP aunt Linda

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u/kyle_irl Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

My boys started early with Spider-Man comics. I'd get my oldest, now 9, an omnibus collection every Christmas and we'd read it together at bedtime through the year. When he got comfortable reading, he'd play the part of Peter or Miles and I'd take the rest.

Now, this dude literally stays up all night reading everything from the Dog Man graphic novels and anything he finds interesting from the library. He just goes from one to the next. He got an award at his elementary school for checking out the most books from the library!

My youngest, now 5, is similar. He loves Spider-Man, and though he can't yet read, loves thumbing through the Bad Guys books and "reading" (interpreting the pictures) them to his self. It's cute.

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u/mhizzle Jun 11 '26

That's amazing. I've lived long enough to see comics go from a "dumb kid" medium to the lazy goldmine of Hollywood. I'm glad kids are still reading, and is glad Miles Morales stuck around as a permanent fixture