What Has Become of Reading?

Forgive an old curmudgeon for asking, but… 

What has happened to us?

Not to them. To us.

When did reading become something we only do if someone can summarize it in thirty seconds? When did every article need a “Too Long; Didn’t Read” version? When did we decide that scrolling was somehow the intellectual equivalent of reading?

Our primary education began with Fun with Dick and Jane. Our secondary education had us wrestling our way through To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, and enough Shakespeare to convince us that English wasn’t actually English.

We didn’t enjoy all of it.

But we read it.

Today, children are handed tablets before they can tie their shoes. By kindergarten they’re swiping screens better than they can print their names. By middle school they’re fluent in emojis, GIFs, and acronyms. By graduation they can communicate almost any emotion with a yellow face wearing sunglasses—but ask them to read twelve uninterrupted pages without checking a notification and you’ve proposed an Olympic event.

Long-form journalism has become clickbait. Essays have become listicles. Books become podcasts. Podcasts become sixty-second clips.

Even our conversations have been reduced to abbreviations.

LOL.

OMG.

IDK.

SMH.

We’re communicating more than ever while saying less than ever.

We once learned to diagram sentences. Now we’re lucky if we can finish one.

We used to argue about what the author meant. Now we argue about whether the article was too long.

Somewhere along the way we confused having information at our fingertips with having wisdom in our heads. I don’t think we’ve become less intelligent. I think we’ve become less patient with intelligence.

Now permit one more curmudgeonly observation.

My grandkids read. And this Bubba couldn’t be happier. 

Yes, they have tablets. (Insert appropriately exaggerated eye roll here.) They know how to navigate technology better than I know how to reset the television after I accidentally change the input.

But they also curl up with books. Good books. They disappear into stories. They ask questions. They laugh at characters. They imagine worlds.

And that doesn’t happen by accident.

Their parents—my kids, and yes, this is absolutely a Proud Dad Moment—have made reading part of who they are as a family.

Because here’s what I’ve come to believe: Children don’t become readers because we tell them reading is important. They become readers because they grow up in homes where books are loved.

Maybe the future isn’t determined by artificial intelligence after all. Maybe it’s determined by whether a six-year-old still believes there’s magic hidden between the covers of a book.

I don’t worry nearly as much about whether my grandkids know how to use an iPad. I worry about whether they’ll still know how to lose themselves in a good book.

Judging by the love of books I see in them as children… I think they’re going to be just fine.