One of the things I marvel about my eldest sister (she’s 72 years old) is her ability to rattle off hard numbers from memory effortlessly. These include prices of things she purchased, from travel packages to health supplements. She can accurately recall phone numbers, as well as the year various events took place. Or how long each of her past ten vacations lasted and where she stayed on those trips.
Talk about attention to details!
But it’s not just her. When I first met my mentor Brian Teel (now also in his 70’s) back in the early noughties, I was amazed how he could recite baseball scores from years ago like the games took place just a minute ago!
How on earth do baby boomers like Brian and my sister do it?!
I think it has to do with the fact that baby boomers, more than any other generation (aside of course from those belonging to the even older silent generation), have spent much of their lives without Internet or modern digital devices. Stuff that are so taken for granted today by the likes of the younger generations.
I truly believe that this disparity is the single biggest reason for the attention (and memory) deficit we now see between those in my sister’s generation and those who came after. Especially prominent in today’s Gen Z’ers and Gen Alphas!
The Demise Of Reading
Baby boomers grew up depending mostly on their own wits, and time spent learning things by heart the old-fashioned way. They spend long and focused minutes and hours internalising and repeating facts and information to recall them in a heartbeat.
An unavoidable way in which they do all of that is with the help of a skill that, in today’s hyper TikTok world, is gradually eroding.
I’m talking of course about reading.
Much has been lamented in recent times about the demise of the reading habit around the world. From the US to the UK to here in my home country, which has seen adult literacy rates drop below the OECD average.
Still, despite this dismal scenario, I don’t recall anyone boldly stepping forward to declare that reading is now well and truly dead. That we now live in a world that is “postliterate” (a term first used by the likes of media theorists Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman).
I was wrong.
The End Of Reading Is Here!
Ten days ago, I came across this fascinating essay. It basically sounded the death knell, in no uncertain terms, about the fate of long-form reading in our world today.
Rose Horowitch is a staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine who wrote on July 8 a lengthy 8,600 word article documenting the history and proliferation of reading, and its current sorry state. She was also interviewed in various radio and news features (see image above) where she explained why she was calling this world today postliterate.
Her central point? That reading today is pretty much dead, no thanks to shorter attention spans of everyone. Which in turn is fuelled by the endless streaming of short-form videos, podcasts, and all manner of what I call “moving media” that are algorithmically designed to grab hold of our attention like the hook of a fishing line.
Not that most of us don’t already know this. The evidence is all around us everyday, and as plain as sunshine and moonlight.
In universities too, we find professors lamenting about the drop in their students’ reading abilities. So much so they have to think twice about issuing reading lists to them! Back in my undergrad and postgrad days, reading tons of books and journals were de rigueur, and none of us would dare protest to the task. In fact the more diligent ones would eagerly read beyond what was mandated!
Will The End Of Reading And Literacy Be Our Legacy?
But I think, for now, the urgency and imperative to do something about this sad state of affairs is either non-existent or yet to reach a noticeable enough degree for some form of corrective action to be undertaken. And to be taken collectively.
Now to be sure, Horowitch has her fair share of detractors too who believe she’s being too alarmist. Even here, there is still the belief that it’s less about a decline in the reading habit and more about an evolving towards different means of absorbing information.
But even detractors must concede that the evidence of a lower interest and commitment to long-form reading can be found everywhere. Including in public libraries, many of which have reported a shift in books borrowed over the decades to more digital formats, graphic novels and young adult fiction which typically contain shorter sentences.
More significantly, they are seeing a distinct decline in reading for pleasure.
As if that’s not telling enough, a nasty cliff effect has taken hold: literacy rates in adults here drop after 35 years of age! Mainly because many working adults now avoid reading altogether. To them, they already read too much at work — emails, text messages, memos and official reports. So why would they still want to read after leaving the workplace at the end of a long, weary day? (At least that’s what a peer of mine, currently in senior management at his firm, tells me by way of explaining why he still hasn’t read the book I gave him for his birthday years ago!)
Heeding The Warning To Restore Reading In My Life
One of the unexpected outcomes I’m determined to follow through after reading Horowitch is this:
To refrain hereon from using Gen AI, in any way or form, for my writing. (Yes yes, full disclosure this poem I posted last month was AI-generated)
I know I know. It seems unrelated to what I’ve been saying so far.
Yet it should be easy to see that reading and writing are intrinsically-linked no? How much of what we can produce as writers often hinges on how avid a reader we are. So if I’m not reading enough and regularly (input), there will be dire consequences to my quality of writing in the long run (output).
Which, if I’m being honest, has of late been less than my best. The temptation to use Gen AI to short-circuit the hard work of writing from scratch is also oh-so-seductive.
As I’ve already proven!
In the end, I must heed Horowitch’s parting warning at the end of her excellent essay.
For I owe it to my readers. But more importantly, I owe it to myself and my determination to continuously hone my “craft”. Like the way baby boomers such as my sister and mentor have done for much of their lives.
And ensure my writing voice remains mine. An absolutely critical stance that I must carve out for myself. Against what’s increasingly the convention and norm in this pathetic AI-saturated world we live in today.
So over to you Horowitch! For your piece’s excellent conclusion and call-to-action, and which I’m now making as this essay’s conclustion and call-to-action too.
“What we’re losing is the ability and inclination to read… An astonishing wealth of information and wisdom has been bequeathed to us. What we’ll do with this inheritance is up to us.”
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