> On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, yeah, I'm all for that, but my question was why don't kids today
> want to read?
>
> If this is true, is it different from the more recent past?
Never mind the very distant past. Said the medievalist.
> That's a
> real question. Very few of my contemporaries (born in '69) read for
> pleasure, and when they read because they had to, they didn't read
> very well, it always seemed to me.
>
I agree. I'm '67, and had the same experience. Anecdotal, sure, but there it is.
>
> Tentative answer: Kids read all the time. They just don't read "texts."
>
I have another tentative answer: a lot of the kids who don't like to read are kids who wouldn't have been in college thirty years ago. But we are surprised when all the numbers look different . . .
j