Are We Moving Beyond Reading?

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

A common lament these days is that kids don’t read, or at least, they don’t read enough. Give them a spare moment and their first inclination is to pick up their phones and surf. Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, etc. - the mode varies but the rabbit hole is the same. 

And the way things are progressing - we’re only moving deeper into our virtual worlds, with more and more social media platforms emerging - we’re only going to be spending more time in front of our screens, not less. 

Consider also other contributing factors, such as the dwindling number of bookstores in our communities, which lessens the opportunity for discovery that we had once upon a time.

So, we try to convince and cajole. We offer suggestions on great texts worth checking out. We even buy them bright, shiny books that we think might interest them. 

Some of this helps, some of this doesn’t. On a relative basis, this moves the dial somewhat, but not as much as we’d like. Not enough. 

I wonder, though, if we’re approaching this wrong.

Example #1: A friend and I were discussing how our kids learned new ideas, and specifically, how to break down the elements needed to understand a new concept. In our youth, we would have picked up a book and looked to better understand that concept, or if that information wasn’t easily accessible, we’d resort to asking others, or trial and error. Today, his daughter uses YouTube to not only get a primer on the topic but also a step by step “How-To” - in fact, numerous How-To’s, as there are any number of videos on any given topic on YouTube.

Example #2: Mark Cuban was asked in a recent podcast how kids today should better prepare themselves for the future. His answer was TikTok! He explained that kids need to know how these tools - which aren’t going away anytime soon - work because they’re not simply a forum for aimless fun, they’re also educational platforms. He cited the example of his son discussing the idea of gross margins with him, a concept he learned off of TikTok. (In my own life, my daughter has used these platforms to better educate herself on topics as diverse as social justice, psychology, medicine and cooking.)

My takeaway is that, while kids today might be reading less, they have the potential to learn far, far more. They have many more tools at their disposal - tools that are, in fact, far more versatile and accommodating of the different ways we all learn. 

Because not everyone learns best by reading, by studying textbooks and the written word. Some of us are more visual learners. Others need to listen to concepts being explained to really understand them. All of those approaches are good, and social media has given us all the ability and flexibility to learn as we’d like. 

Certainly, there are plenty of problems when it comes to social media. Our news feeds are full of the abuses and problems that result from it (and not just for kids). We will have to get our arms around these problems and find a way to manage our way out of the real harm it can cause/contribute to. 

But applied for good, it’s a very powerful vehicle for positive change, education and development. So, we need to orient ourselves - and our kids - towards it in that fashion. 

First, we need to learn these tools ourselves and what’s available and how we can leverage the learning potential of these platforms. If we don’t know them, we won’t be able to use them ourselves nor can we teach our kids to use them for optimal effect. 

Second, and subsequently, we need to orient our kids towards the value of these tools as educational platforms instead of just putting them down. We’re not going to be able to take them off the platforms - try as we might - but we might be able to push them in the right direction to learn from them.

Of course, foundational to all of this, is our first responsibility: which is to instill in them the desire to learn. The more curious we are, the more curious they will be. The more we encourage their questions, the better they’ll understand that asking questions and pushing their boundaries is a good thing. The more tools we give them to learn, the more they’ll actually learn.

The point here is that the learning is the point, not the mechanism. And instilling and encouraging that desire to learn has to be the constant, not the approach.

So are we moving beyond reading? Not in the sense that “reading is dead”. But we are certainly moving beyond the idea that reading is the ‘only’ or ‘best’ way to learn.