The future of the written word.

The future of the written word.   

I love to write.  I write because it makes me a happier person, it makes me more thoughtful, more spiritual and it improves every other area of my life.  I have always loved writing.  I can remember my very first personal narrative in first grade.  It was about my impending tonsillectomy and the fear I felt about it, complete with hand drawn pictures. 

As a student I was always more than happy to write essays, short stories and research papers.  As a public schoolteacher for eight years I always had my students writing.  I taught Spanish so many of my students looked at me like I was a crazy person when I asked them to write an essay before they had a full command of the language, but they managed to get at least something written out with my constant pestering helping them along.  Lately I find myself wondering though, is the written word as we know it disappearing?  With all of the technological advances and reality tv shows, will our younger generations really want to sit down and read a book, let alone write something? 

I don’t think that the written word is in danger of extinction but I do think that it’s just not all that popular.  Adults and children alike just don’t read that much anymore for pleasure and their writing consists of short texts and tweets.  Many of my high school students hated writing and hated reading even more.  Most of them couldn’t even figure out how to begin writing an essay or short story because the world as a whole just isn’t as literate as it was a generation ago.  The results of a poll published in January of this year showed that 23% of Americans did not crack open even one book in 2013.  The same poll showed that in 1978, 42% of Americans read 11 or more books in a single year.  Many might blame this decline on technology but I see it in a different way, I think reading is even easier and more accessible today than it was in 1978.  We have tablets, eBooks, smartphones, etc.  Today you can read virtually anywhere at any time, but many of us simply choose not to.  We also choose not to write more than a few words a day.  We choose not to write much in an era where we can become instantly published authors through the power of the internet. 

It is hard to pinpoint the reason for the decline in interest for reading but scholars have seen a strong correlation between children’s literacy and their overall interest in reading linked to them being read to at home.  Many parents simply don’t read to their children and don’t read anything themselves.  I’m not the perfect parent; I sometimes go days without reading to my children.  We get caught up in the daily grind and it’s often hard to get my toddler to sit still and listen to a book but I need to at least set an example so that she will see that reading is something that people do.  Instead of waiting for her to go to bed so I can curl up with a good novel I need to read in front of her.  Our kids want to be just like us so we must model the behavior that we want for them.  So tonight, I’m going to sit down with my little ones and read a story and hopefully they will enjoy it and receive all of the pleasure and satisfaction that I have from the written word so that they can one day make great cultural contributions to civilization and not just be a bunch idiots sitting on the couch watching some hillbilly reality show. 

Links to articles mentioned: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/reading-report-_n_5307509.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-decline-of-the-american-book-lover/283222/

http://www.nea.org/grants/facts-about-childrens-literacy.html