The Joys And Benefits Of Reading
By Romi Mahajan
22 July, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Over the past month or so, I’ve had the opportunity to give solicited advice to quite a few teenagers about universities, careers, and general “growth.” The conversations have been revelatory not so much for their substance as for their gaps. Perhaps in all generations, we “forty-somethings” discuss “teens, nowadays” in the same shocked, semi-derisive tones, so forgive me if I am a dinosaur still denying the meteor strike.
But I can’t help feeling some level of pain when I consider today’s middle-class youth. With notable exceptions, teenagers I meet fall into two categories- 1. The ambitious, tech-enabled, purposeful type who wants to make big money and has an “app” to get there; 2. The mentally languid, also tech-enabled, teen who has nothing to say about anything but loves Apple products.
I try to engage them but the avenues of possible conversation are narrow to the point of constriction. The desire to connect, discover, and grow through discussion is absent in these young people.
Oh, and one more thing….they don’t read books or for that matter anything long-form.
“People my age don’t read….books” one told me with an ironic and derisive accent on the word “books,” as though reading books would be like calculating on an abacus , enjoying science, or actually being able to have a full conversation with an adult.
The type 1 teens have seen enough to know that they don’t need books. While this might be a painful realization (that books are not necessary) for a dinosaur like me, it is a fact that any young people with sufficient technical skill and enough savvy about the way the world works can be very financially successful without exercising their right to read deeply. The technology world is awash with tech-savvy, semi-illiterate-yet-very-rich people who in some sense have shown that they are the ones who have “evolved” after the meteor strike. Try to engage them in a conversation about politics, inequality, history, or literature (!!) and you’ll find the limits of the technocratic worldview.
The type 2 teens are just clueless, made dumb by the unremitting assault of idiotic entertainment in an omni-channel digital world in which Edward Gibbon would be restricted to 140 characters. Internet “memes” are “knowledge” and logic is completely absent
Neither of these types is particularly pleasant to be around. Now, there is clearly a backlash afoot and any of us have had the privilege of meeting young people who are idealistic, caring, articulate, and driven at the same time. But they’re rare.
To all teens (if you’re a teenager and you’ve read this far, you must be something open-minded) I must confess something at this juncture. While I was a bright, informed young person I also did not read much. I didn’t have enough curiosity, enough relentless desire to understand. I developed these later in life and I can say with no equivocation that this was to my detriment.
With regard to reading, there is an important point to make here- even outside of important notions of “informed citizenry, ““the responsibility of knowledge” and other serious constructs-- reading is enjoyable and frankly beautiful. I robbed myself of that beauty for years. What a mistake. So I encourage teenagers to read, read, and read. Read deeply and widely. Give up your device and grab a book. Find new worlds to enjoy in the pages of books.
Perhaps these are all the dying gasps of a soon-extinct worldview. I hope not.
Romi Mahajan can be reached at [email protected]
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