“I won’t need to read Frankenstein when I have a job in the real world.”
“Did you understand Frankenstein?”
“Yeah, it’s about some yellow monster.”
“Right.”
This is a paraphrase of a real conversation I had with a peer in an Ethics class. We were discussing the presence of AI in the near future and I advocated for students to still pursue the Humanities. My peer, the one who didn’t understand Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, was arguing that only STEM matters and that students should pursue classes in computer science.
Now, I am not ranting about the Humanities vs. STEM debate. It is frankly an overdone discussion that I am tired of talking about. What was so concerning to me was that he read Frankenstein but did not understand why we read it, or what the larger themes of the novel are. For anyone who has not read the novel or who has watched some movies and thinks they understand it, the novel is about a monster who is grappling with his creator abandoning him. It’s a novel about the responsibility of creation, prejudice, alienation and the power of education. When the monster finds books to read like Paradise Lost, he understands the world so much more and his language evolves to encapsulate what he feels and how abandoned he is by others, including the man who was supposed to be his father. And yet, this is also not a rant about Frankenstein. What is so frustrating to me is the normalization of poor reading comprehension.
Reading comprehension helps children understand their relationships with other people and with the world as they grow. It also helps build their vocabulary and answer questions about the larger themes of a text. Finally, it helps children build their imagination to create something new on their own. For students (we’re all forever students) and adults, reading comprehension allows us to extract and apply information to our work and interests. It also allows us to strengthen our arguments and see the opposing arguments. Today, there is a plague among us: convenience.
To some extent, convenience is a part of American culture, from binging TV shows with beers in hand, to the concept of take-out, to-go and fast food to mitigate sit-down restaurants in a fast-paced working environment. Today, the convenience of AI is encouraging us to not prioritize reading comprehension. But this is an issue that will affect generations to come.
We are doing a disservice to the children of the future when we rely on AI to tell us what an article means. Although the assistance of AI might be efficient in the short term, in the long term, it means we cannot understand things on our own. If we need to be parented by an artificial entity, then who will parent our children? Who will tell your child why the turtle won the race against the hare in Aesop’s Fables? Will ChatGPT do that?
Reading comprehension is important because you can understand what you’re reading on your own and extract information without an external figure. It is easy to accept information when it is told by an authority figure or charismatic individual. Why do you think we broadcast news? Reading allows the chance to re-read and contemplate. Sometimes spoken words fly over our heads but the rhetoric — how the speaker says it or attempts to instill fear, sadness or rage — stays with us.
The power of reading comprehension is being able to govern ourselves. Democracy only works when the people question the government and are able to govern themselves.
Some people believe they can verbally argue and speak well without reading or writing. This is equivalent to claiming you can teach French but have no interest in speaking the language.
What gives you the impression that social media does not require reading comprehension? We do not wake up one day and obtain reading comprehension like we become eighteen at one point. It is a skill that requires practice. So, when someone claims that reading is not important or necessary for their field, they are admitting to a weakness. There are statistics in psychology, mathematical logic in philosophy, plot formulas in literature and language in coding. Although it might not look like it on the surface, everything is connected one way or another. Reading comprehension is power to the people. It is a skill. To read is to encounter and possibly absorb new information — a form of education. In this, we can debate from opposing sides. In this, we can contemplate societies beyond our own and criticize the one we live in. In this, we govern ourselves.
Beneath this rant is sadness. I see the future of education and it’s crumbling. A student in higher education ought to be able to read an article on their own and analyze it, let alone summarize it.
I would never force someone to read a book, much like a movie. That’s not the point. The point is that we should be able to understand arguments on our own, so that we may question their soundness or validity. If we are unable to comprehend, we are unable to question. And when we stop questioning things, we lose the ability to govern ourselves. If our current society would like to adequately question or support the government, then we must be able to comprehend issues raised, topics argued and legal issues at hand. I do not think we can. Thus, we are at a very dangerous point.
Your poor reading comprehension isn’t cute, it’s alarming. And you can’t hear the sirens because you don’t know they’re sounding. Recall the last time you read an argument for yourself and understood its position. If you cannot, I worry.
I urge you to question what you’re being told and do some reading of your own. To be able to govern ourselves ensures a democratic society and future. Your poor reading comprehension isn’t cute. It’s saddening, disappointing and dangerous for our civil society.
Sophia Romanov Imber is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at sromanovimber@cornellsun.com.
Hater Friday runs on Fridays and centers around critiquing media or culture.
