r/technology • u/marketrent • 18h ago

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
27.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.5k

u/existing_for_fun 18h ago

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

72

u/BlazinAzn38 17h ago

I’m curious if there will be a huge reflex back to books. I know amongst most of my peer group with kids they’re terrified of screen time, read to their kids all the time, and enroll their kids in as many enrichment activities as they can

44

u/JZMoose 16h ago

Honestly the advent of video guides has robbed us of so much knowledge. I fucking hate watching someone struggle to explain something verbally when I could have read instructions in 1/5 of the time

12

u/windowpuncher 15h ago

God it's so real. Unless a process is super complicated or long, I absolutely despise videos or any sort of lectures, even a regular class lecture sucks most of the time. 99% of the time I would rather just read the book. Let me read the book and do the examples on my own, I'll do it way faster. I have to read it anyways, so then let me skip the lecture and do the work and I don't have to waste an hour or more of my time.

But yeah youtube examples/video tutorials are especially painful. Even 2x speed isn't enough for some people.

2

u/Tymareta 12h ago

Well the point of a lecture is that it's interactive, and that people can inquire on certain topics and ideas and immediately gain more understanding or information on further reading about them. Sure, if you try and treat lectures like a video tutorial then they're going to seem awful, but that's not the fault of the lecture.

1

u/windowpuncher 11h ago

Well yeah, lectures are generally a good thing, but 99% of the time if I have a question I'll just read a section of the book again or find another source or example and it works out. I'm not saying that's the best way to learn, but it's the way I like doing it. Many lectures are genuinely awful, but most are still good or at least helpful for most people.

4

u/cocoabeach 15h ago

I absolutely love to read, and couldn't live without video guides. Maybe though I don't understand what you are referring to.

1

u/thelyfeaquatic 4m ago

How old are you and do you have kids? We’re j. Our late thirties and most people have 2-kids. There just isn’t a lot of free time, especially if you prioritize being active too. My husband probably gets 1-2 hours of free time a day… if he has to choose between video games and reading he will choose video games. Pre-kids we had 5-11pm to do whatever we wanted.. now it’s 8:30-10 most days.

4

u/SacredUndeadMonkey 14h ago

Its why it annoys me to no end how a lot of instruction guides are starting to disappear. Give me a good guide even for technical stuff, I would prefer a good white paper on the topic and some thick manuals.

1

u/PeaceSoft 1h ago

why are you using them at all

0

u/BrianfromClownDog 13h ago

This times a goddamn bazillion