Creating a Generation of Illiterates
By 
Someone pointed this out yesterday in our discussion of the decline of reading. Our devices are leading to functional illiteracy because parents find reading to their kids boring, unlike watching Tik Toks.
Last week, former elementary school teacher Spencer Russell posed a question to parents who follow his Instagram account, Toddlers Can Read: “Why aren’t you reading aloud to your kids?”
The responses, which Russell shared with the Guardian, ranged from embarrassed to annoyed to angry. “It’s so boring,” said one parent. “I don’t have time,” said another. One mother wrote in: “I don’t enjoy reading myself.”
Others reported difficulty getting their children to sit still long enough for a full dose of Goodnight Moon or Mother Goose: “He’s always interrupting,” or “my son just wants to skip all the pages.” They noted the monotony of story time, with one saying: “I love reading with my kids, but they request the same book over and over.”
Parents who struggle to read to their children tend to be younger themselves, according to a recent survey from HarperCollins UK. Fewer than half of gen Z parents called reading to their children “fun for me”, and almost one in three saw reading as “more of a subject to learn” than something to be enjoyed – significantly more than their gen X counterparts.
This mindset undoubtedly trickles down to their kids: the survey also found that only a third of five-to-10-year-olds frequently read for fun, compared to over half in 2012. This could be because their parents are less likely to read to them before they turn five: 41% of parents of all ages reported doing so, a steep drop from the 64% in 2012.
This of course just opens everyone to be bombarded with propaganda since they have no ability to think for themselves, generate empathy, engage in critical analysis, or do anything other than watch videos like drooling morons. Just like our overlords want. It’s a huge problem. And it starts with young parents.