Let Gen Z Hate Reading

I am a mother to three Zoomers and an Alpha (send help, plz 😅) and a formative moment came when my oldest, now 18, received a Christmas gift from his grandparents.

The gift was a book series, and a heaping load of shame. He'd already told them he didn't like to read. In fact, the battle over reading was what led me to unschooling and a path I have no regrets walking down.

So when he opened that gift, what he received wasn't, "We love you and want to give you good things," but rather, "Your desires are unacceptable to us and we will try to correct them."

This from my parent who told me they lit candles at church for my children because I homeschooled them.

And me, in the middle of these two extremes.

An avid reader myself, I could understand how his grandparents felt he was missing out on something important. I'd read the studies, been told how more than food, clothing and shelter:

Reading is the most important thing you can do for your children.

I long carried the guilt of not doing so because my kids simply weren't interested, but my love for my children and my steely determination to let them become who they were instead of what someone else decided they should be protected me from making reading an issue in our household.

A decade later, my beliefs have evolved as my children have grown and now I emphatically believe that pressure to push them into reading is not just outdated, but potentially seriously damaging to their sense of self.

That child of mine can converse eloquently and thoughtfully on virtually every topic I can conceive of.

I am still frequently astonished at the depth of knowledge he possesses.

He has read probably 1-2 chapter books in his entire 18 years.

The world unfolding around us is doing so at breakneck speed. Information is more complex, more vast and arriving faster than human brains can keep up with.

There is a reason emojis are so popular and it isn't because they are "cutesy"; they convey more information in a single element than an entire sentence of text.

I am not opposed to reading. I consume thousands of words per day across AI research conversations, fiction novels and the various online sources I immerse myself in. I'd argue that even "non-readers" read more than we might think due to the prevalence of written word in every aspect of our daily lives.

I am opposed, however, to treating the written word as the only medium worth considering and I suggest we may be doing so as a projection of our own desires.

As it happens, I despise video content. I avoid video content almost as resolutely as I avoid talking on the phone. But I understand that humans process data in diverse ways and the written word is becoming least of those.

Humans are evolving to process information faster and faster, and for many people, the image or the graphic conveys that information as completely and correctly as the chapter of a book.

So, let the Zoomers hate reading. Video and graphical content are to the parents of this generation as rock and roll was to the parents a few generations ago.

Despite the fear and concern, humanity will ever progress onward in its journey.

What might we gain by embracing the progress rather than trying futilely to halt it?

And as for Tolkien being forgotten in 50 years, the story cares not about the medium; it persists in spite of it.