zlacker

>>bertma+(OP)
Times have changed. Students who use podcasts, YouTube, and ChatGPT to complete their academic tasks aren't shallower or less educated than those who have spent years mastering the skill of extracting information from dense books.I have younger relatives who can't sustain their attention to read a book to save their life but still earn excellent grades because they were born into a world of technology. Their way of finding and extracting information is different—not better, just different.

>>retskr+o7
The question is if they actually are just as capable, or if they are gaming the metric used by educators. My money is on the latter, but then again I do tend to have a negative outlook.

>>clario+38
The point these focus-deprived children could accurately make is that our adult world is also about reward hacking and bullshit metrics. I’m old but I will tell you that everything I dislike that I see in the young is society’s fault. We did a truly terrible job of giving them a world in which to become better, rather than worse, people.

In 1400, actually reading books deeply was for autistic weirdos who were usually sent to monasteries. In 1950, you could actually mention reading literary fiction on a job interview and it would help, rather than hurt, you. In 2024, actually reading books deeply is for autistic weirdos again and “well-adjusted” people realize that their ability to afford food and housing relies on the use of information to form a collage beneficial to one’s personal image—not deep understanding of high-quality information, and certainly not the high-risk generation of anything new.