When one of my professors handed me a packet of article readings to read through by our next class, I flipped through it without a thought to how long it was, simply noting the titles and what sort of ideas I might encounter within. I set the thick bunch of papers down just in time to hear my professor apologize for how much they were assigning us to read, begging us to at least try to get through it. I thought: “What? A professor at Cornell University was feeling bad about making their students read?” I pushed my concerns away. In another class (an English class, for that matter), I was struck by how many of the students would simply blank upon being asked questions about the plot of our readings. It was then that I realized being at a top university in the nation does not necessarily mean being around the top readers.
As it turns out, the patterns I was noticing in my classes play out at institutions of higher learning across the United States. According to an article published by The Atlantic in October of this year, a professor at Columbia University noted that “students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester.” Most sources tend to identify this phenomenon as a trend, something that occurs in every generation and must simply be tolerated or adapted to. Shorter readings and assignments are being created to cater to a changing student population, with even whole books being discarded in lieu of shorter selections. Is this really the path we should be taking? Should professors be contributing to the growing literary crisis happening at universities, including Cornell?
In order to answer these questions, it is important to first understand the why: Why are students increasingly being unable to digest longer and more complex material? The easiest reason to point to would be the shortening of attention spans, yet as the Center for Brain, Mind and Society suggests, that idea “may say more about our evolving environments than our actual capacity to sustain attention.” Instead of an actual decrease in students’ abilities to pay attention, there is instead a problem with what the Center calls the “social media dopamine loop.” Technology provides our brains with sudden bursts of a rewarding feeling, causing us to want to return again and again. Reading becomes more difficult, because longer texts build the need for long-term investment and patience to see how a story or concept will play out. Without the immediate satisfaction our “evolving environments” provide, readers are simply bored. They turn their minds away from what might be seen as “hard to understand” in favor of sudden enjoyment, no matter the costs to their comprehension powers.
With the why, now there is only one question in need of answering: Should Cornell bear the rising tide of lower reader comprehension? To be honest, though I am never over-ecstatic about being assigned sixty pages of reading, I still defend the need for lengthy, challenging works in university classrooms. Paraphrasing and cutting down on the rich realm of literature can only lead to disaster. If we are only ever fed the barest of nutrients, only ever consume selections or abridged versions, how can we develop the sort of minds we need to face our age with wisdom? If we are only ever expected to grasp the simplest workings or devices of literature, how can we bring the world to greater understanding? Categorizing an emergency as simply a “trend” that can be waited out does nothing to solve the issue at hand. There is only so much shortening that can be done until there is nothing left. We can not boil down the most beautiful of language only to try to get to the “basic” idea, as it is the craftsmanship of words that lends an entire sentence, an entire book its truest meaning. A fundamental message alone is not what literature is about. Inherent to literature is depth, complexity and beauty. Attempting to cut down on any three of those aspects results in something that cannot be likened to literature. A fundamental message contains no message at all; it adds nothing new to the conversation, only seeking to simplify and destroy any vestiges of thought and originality. Besides this, extensive reading is stimulating for your brain, engaging your mind with tough material that enhances intellectual capabilities. Reading supplies us with the insight we need to effectively handle diverse perspectives and situations. If student reading comprehension continues to decline, we risk diminishing our capacity for dealing with critical ideas, leaving us with an emptier world and impoverished intellectual landscape.
Personally, I do not wish to see such a world come to be. Yet, change is only brought about through examining the tendencies of our present culture and fighting back against them. In other words, bring on the reading. Learning is only accomplished when new ideas are presented, no matter how difficult it may be for students to piece through the material. It will never help to give up on complex works, giving the crisis room to grow. We can only get better through practice.
Jane Locke is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].