"Book reading doesn't seem to improve young people's money and prospects, so why do it?"(67) This is the basic message that Mark Bauerlein is spreading in the second chapter of this book called "The New Bibliophobes". At first I had no idea what a bibliophobe was. So naturally as part of the Dumbest Generation, I googled it. I came to learn that a bibliophobe was someone who hates reading.
This seems to match perfectly with people our age. As a high school senior I am proud to say that I did end up reading all the books assigned in my English classes throughout my four years in high school. However, plenty of my friends made it by without even purchasing the book at all. To be honest, instead of using the three and a half months to read this book and get these blogs done, I waited until the very last possible second. So to be a bibliophobe is dead on. But like Bauerlein points out, reading isn't really helping me progress in life and because of that I don't spend too much time with it. I want to go to college and study to be an architect so I can design homes and communities that create their own energy. When will knowing Hamlet's second soliloquy help me do this? In order to get ahead in the business world that I will be entering in about five or six years I will need to be able to communicate with others quickly and be able to get ideas across a firm of other architects so we can decide on how to go about our next project. Even the classes I have already taken in high school have been solely on the computer. We spend about four weeks learning the computer program and after that short period of time we are so familiar with it and pick it up so quickly that we can whip together an entire floor plan and three dimensional model right on the computer in about two weeks. This is the skill that will help me get ahead in my chosen career path, not reading books by dead authors. This area of bibliophobia is indeed one area that I am proud to call myself a member of the Dumbest Generation. My technological skills will be able to get me ahead of the pack even though right now plenty of older people don't see that.
1 comments:
Personally, I love to read. I find it to be one of the greatest means of entertainment because it helps my brain and it's fun. So maybe I'm a nerd. In regards to this generation though, we are so used to the over stimulation of television, computer screens, video games, internet palm devices, and everything else modern. Instant means of communication has made us impatient and thoughtless. I think it's great that you know what you want to do with your life and think that reading isn't essential to your life, but I still think it's something that shouldn't be lost to this generation or any generation. The other day my grandmother said something along the lines of, 'I'm glad you enjoy reading. I wish I had done it more and enjoyed it when I was your age because now my eyes are going and it's too difficult for me to read.' She regrets it because now she is old and she has nothing else to do. Someday that might happen to all of us overstimulated children too, and we'll have nothing to fall back on.
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