The whole "young people don't read" angle is totally tangential. The article makes a big deal of it up front but never justifies it with a concrete tie-in to the research.
As an older millennial that's gotten pretty cynical: why should I read? Most of what is written is just like this article: an attempt to mash some ideas together and explain an underlying phenomenon that the author doesn't really understand. I'm pretty bitter about how much time I wasted in school reading things that were bunk (wait, Columbus did what?) And as study after study gets debunked (until last week, I used to believe exercising willpower sapped physical energy--thanks HN), and "experts" can't agree on questions like what caused the financial collapse, I've become pretty convinced that most of the theories underlying public policy, diplomacy, and the course of history are pseudo-science if not outright fantasy.
Millennials, I think, are utilitarian and unromantic. Fancy ideas in books don't hold much appeal to us because as the web makes information more available, we realize nobody knows what they're talking about.
As an older millennial that's gotten pretty cynical: why should I read? Most of what is written is just like this article: an attempt to mash some ideas together and explain an underlying phenomenon that the author doesn't really understand. I'm pretty bitter about how much time I wasted in school reading things that were bunk (wait, Columbus did what?) And as study after study gets debunked (until last week, I used to believe exercising willpower sapped physical energy--thanks HN), and "experts" can't agree on questions like what caused the financial collapse, I've become pretty convinced that most of the theories underlying public policy, diplomacy, and the course of history are pseudo-science if not outright fantasy.
Millennials, I think, are utilitarian and unromantic. Fancy ideas in books don't hold much appeal to us because as the web makes information more available, we realize nobody knows what they're talking about.