Posted on 12/12/2025 3:13:21 PM PST by Borges
In American high schools, the age of the book may be fading.
Many teenagers are assigned few full books to read from beginning to end — often just one or two per year, according to researchers and thousands of responses to an informal reader survey by The New York Times.
Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows, and college professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly reporting difficulties in getting students to engage with lengthy or complex texts.
Perhaps that is to be expected in the era of TikTok and A.I. Some education experts believe that in the near future, even the most sophisticated stories and knowledge will be imparted mainly through audio and video, the forms that are dominating in the era of mobile, streaming media.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Meanwhile, my count for the year is 93 out of my goal of 65. Too bad it only counts the first time I read a book. Then again, I am 66 and had an excellent third grade teacher who motivated me to read.
"... And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!"
Meanwhile, read this and weep.
Either Linda McMahon was asleep at the switch—or the tech bro interests steamrolled over her.
Good for you. How do you find the time? Fast reader?
What’s a book? Is that something like a long text or tweet?
Reminds me of Evelyn Woodhead.
Students are kept away from books that students have traditionaly enjoyed reading. They are racist. Now all the books and stories are about social issues and what is evil about American history.
Anything longer than the old 140 character limit on twitter. ;-)
I was in high school 60 years ago and I never read an entire book.
I complimented a young man’s handwriting. He was angry he had to learn cursive. Total waste of time, he said. I told him no knowledge was wasted. Think of how much more sophisticated you are over your peers. My comment caught him off guard. You could see his thought of, Oh, yeah, on his face. But, boy, what a shocker. We’re on our way to “Idiocracy.”
“...and you tell ‘em you heard it here first on Roller Derby.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrwDzuUtQKY
Do the k8ds stoll have to read ‘Silas Marner’? That was a slow one.
Do the kids still have to read ‘Silas Marner’? That was a slow one.
I’m off this year with 32. I usually average around 50 per year.
My whole family were readers. Traveling to CA by train my problem was being able to carry the weight of the books. I had to mail them back in Denver. But when audio books came in, the switch was inevitable. The early 3 hour books just covered my commute if I stopped in a rest stop for 15 minutes. Then unabridged books came in and it was buy everything all over again. I’m still not totally back to the printed page, and I’m rarely interested in new books because there are so many books that have my heart that I read over and over and over again.
My great nephew was going into the Marines, so I gave him the DVDs for JAG. He loved them. Then I gave him all the books from the Marine series of WEB Griffin. He didn’t open a single one. I’m thoroughly disgusted that there’s a generation of our family that doesn’t read. How can that be?
I read a ton of books. Currently I’m working my way through the Louis L’Amour books.
CliffsNotes saved me from a lot of reading back then.
I read that after high school voluntarily. I quite liked it.
A kid is a young goat. I’m surprised they can read at all.
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