Not stupid, just diverse

In his Atlantic Monthly article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that the advent of the Internet has caused readers to become adverse to reading long sections of text, making them more prone to skimming when reading online and – in extreme cases – forcing them to give up on reading novels completely. In a world where people are constantly rushing and become impatient when it takes more than five seconds for a Web page to load, it’s not surprising that people tend to skim when surfing the Web. Carr, however, paints a picture of a world split into an unlikely dichotomy, one where readers either skim texts online or don’t read at all. His argument, which accurately pinpoints the ways in which people use the Internet, does not take into consideration the different types of content people receive from the Internet and printed texts and ignores the ability of readers to consume both types of information separately, benefiting differently from both. 

The Internet provides the world with a vast database of knowledge. Carr says himself that “research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.” But people who use the Internet are not often looking for an in-depth analysis but a cursory knowledge. Take, for example, people who use the Internet to consume their daily news. With the creation of RSS feeds, people can now receive up-to-date headlines of the nation’s most important news without ever having to physically click on a news source’s Web site. People using RSS feeds are clearly not reading full articles, but skimming through the headlines to give themselves a general understanding of current events. 

Books, on the other hand, are by nature meant for a more in-depth reading experience. Whether they are textbooks providing lengthy explanations about complex processes or novels meant for pleasure and enjoyment, a reader expects – and many times craves – the fulfilling experience of starting and finishing a book, knowing that every word has been read and then mulled over to ensure that the full meaning has been extracted. Just because one turns to the Internet daily for the cursory sweep of the day’s headlines, does not take away from that person’s ability to concurrently sit down and dig into a full-length novel.

A study done by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows that the growth of the online news audience has slowed since 2000. Online news has become a supplemental source for news, with many people under 40 still turning to traditional news sources for detailed, in-depth reporting, the study found. The stabilizing of online news consumption shows that people are still turning to other sources for their news. If readers are continuing to turn to newspapers for in depth stories, then their ability to read and comprehend these stories should also remain, showing that it is not their ability to read that is declining. A recent eyetrack study by the Poynter Institute shows there is not statistical evidence that people find it difficult to read online. In fact, in a comparison between people who read online and people who read print, 23 percent more people read online stories to completion than print stories. Online readers were also just as likely to be methodical readers as they were to be scanners. This shows that while Carr and others like him might be experiencing an inability to read lengthy texts since the advent of the Internet, people suffering problems such as these are just as common as people who have maintained their ability to absorb lengthy texts both online and off.  

Though these studies show that people are maintaining their ability to read deeply, this does not take into account the way online scanning changes peoples expectations for how they should practice reading. Carr writes that “[his] mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” It seems that for Carr and many of his peers, reading online has altered his expectations for what reading might yield. When he is consuming text online he expects to find information quickly and his brain looks for this same speed when he turns to novels or lengthier texts. Not having had the benefit of growing up and learning to read with both mediums, Carr’s fears are common and understandable. Yet he fails to address his own responsibility to re-teach his brain how to read and consume information differently for both print and online.

Since there is clearly a section of the population who note an inability to read online, perhaps there is something more than just their own waning attention that is causing this phenomenon. In a blog by Sara Quinn, a member of the visual journalism faculty at the Poynter Institute, she strives to look at what makes reading online difficult. Quinn notes that typefaces we are accustomed to in printed text do not translate well to a computer screen, taking away from the smoothness of printed text and making it more difficult for our brains to process what we are reading. Low-resolution monitors, the most common monitors found for an average person’s computer, also make it more difficult to read because they have fewer pixels, which means the legibility of the words decreases. Further, the light emitted by a monitor can be strenuous on the eyes, making it harder for readers to concentrate on the text they are attempting to absorb. 

Of those tested in the Poynter Eyetrack, 56 percent were between the ages of 18-41 and 44 percent were between the ages of 42-60. This causes one to question whether or not generational differences affect the way that we process information with the increased use of the Internet. Carr, and many of the colleagues he mentions in his article, are above the age of 40. They are a part of the Baby Boomer generation for whom Internet didn’t burst onto the stage until they were well into there 30s. But for the Millennial Generation, those students who entered college beginning in the new millennium, Internet has been a part of our reality since the beginning of our formative adolescent years.

I was raised in a family that promoted the reading of books. Both my parents would read in the evenings while I sat working on my homework. Now that I have reached the age where I am both mentally and socially mature enough to read the same novels as them, we often exchange books and recommend titles to one another. But, at the same time, I grew up with the Internet. I can’t remember a time when my house didn’t have a computer and I didn’t know how to go online to find information. Certainly using the Internet has become easier with the demise of dial-up connections and the creation of wireless. But I represent the Millennial at its very core, constantly wired and connected yet appreciative of the benefits of reading in print; the feel of a book in one’s hand, the sound of the turning of pages and the ability to sit and re-read texts over and over to extract their full meaning.

In Mokoto Rich’s article for the New York Times – “Literacy Debate, Online: R U Really Reading?” – he describes a young Millennial, Zachary Smith, who also finds a way to settle the difference between reading online and reading books. Smith, who is a freshman at Columbia University, reads political articles online, but mentioned to Rich in his interview that he also read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand this summer. Smith’s ability to do both allows him to gain different skills from each type of reading, corroborating information quickly from online and using deep cognitive skills when reading novels. Smith too represents the Millennial Generation and their ability to gather information from a variety of sources, all the while drawing information and a deeper meaning. 

Carr is accurate in saying that “the kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds.” But what his generational gap blinds him from seeing is that deep reading can happen concurrently with the type of periphery analysis that happens from skimming online. The Millennial Generation has been brought up on the concept of excelling in many areas and having multiple, diverse talents. Thus, it is not impossible for Millennials to spend all day surfing the Web, only to pick up a copy of War and Peace later that evening.  

What is more frightening for the Millennial Generation than a depletion of in-depth reading is the idea of Web 2.0, the development of Web-based communities to allow for greater collaboration. There is so much content on the Web that Millennials are consuming many different things, which has led to a lack of a common culture among them. These days, Web users go online to their personalized news pages and search for music based on their interests, not what iTunes says is the most popular song. Everything online has become so individualized that there is nothing connecting the Millennial Generation to one another. This lack of a common ground causes one to question how the Millennials will shape themselves during this formative time in their lives. What will they look back on and remember as the defining moment of their adolescence? Will it be different for everyone? And if so, then what will happen to the overall responsiveness and mission for this generation? Without a common purpose, this generation will have a difficult time agreeing when it becomes their time to assume leadership roles in this country. And for a generation expected to solve all the problems that the Baby Boomers created, this boasts a difficult roadblock for them to overcome. 

 

 

From hypocrites to heroes: How Millennials will stop the environmental crisis

Meet today’s typical college student. She’s academically motivated, having grown up in a society that stressed academic excellence and promoted the value of higher education. She’s well rounded, involved in as many extracurricular clubs and organizations as she can without having to temper her studying and social habits. She’s civically minded and volunteers at the local homeless shelter on the weekends. And she’s environmentally conscious; she recycles, uses compostable silverware in the dining halls and always turns off the lights when she leaves a room. But when she’s not busy with all of her activities, she can usually be found wired into her mp3 player, cell phone with Internet capabilities and the latest social networking site. She’s a consumer who has been marketed to her entire life. She’s part of the Millennial Generation, and she’s no exception. She’s one of many young adults born between 1982 and 2000 who comprise this generation. As Millennials grow older and struggle to find their place in American society they will also grapple with a greater challenge, learning to reconcile the burden of becoming a more sustainable society with their own desire to consume and produce waste that adds to the destruction of the environment. 

Born into an increasingly technological world and introduced to the concept of mass consumption from an early age, Millennials have a unique position, dependent on such technology yet forced with the burden of decreasing their own consumption and finding a way for the world to stop its negative impact on the environment. As more world citizens are born every day and people continue to consume at alarming rates, Millennials have no choice in attempting to find a solution. As Al Gore, a leader in the fight against global warming, said in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the climate crisis is indeed a “true planetary emergency.” There are, however, many hurdles standing in the way of Millennials and their race to preserve the environment; the global nature of fighting a problem that affects not just one segment of society but all segments, the problem of how to govern other nations’ practices, and Millennials’ personal struggles against their need for consumerism and detachment from nature. Millennials possess the ability to help fight environmentally damaging practices and change society’s view of sustainability, but it’s their own drive toward consumption that stands in their way, making themselves their most formidable barrier.

Millennials, the largest generation with nearly 10 million children in the United States alone, are no strangers to the call for social action and their ability to help implement small grassroots campaigns is what will ultimately drive them to a sustainability crusade. Take, for example, the number of young entrepreneurs who have emerged from the Millennial Generation. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the social networking Web site Facebook, was just 19 when he created the site that now boasts more than 66 million active users. The site, which started as a networking took for Harvard University has grown to encompass anyone over the age of 13 and has an estimated worth of $15 billion, according to Forbes.com. Few Millennials today would argue that Facebook doesn’t affect the way youth communicate with one another, showing that social movements can start small and grow into something that changes the way a society functions. Part of the reason social movements such as Facebook have resonated among Millennials is because they have grown up accustomed to thinking about broad, sweeping social changes. The Web 2.0 movement, a term used to describe changing trends in World Wide Web technology that seeks to enhance creativity, communications and information sharing, has literally grown with Millennials and they have become the key users of the new technology. As a result of Facebook’s success, many other Web sites are using the Web 2.0 model to increase the way their information is accessed, writes New York Times blogger Saul Hansell. Though Web 2.0 is a relatively new concept for online communication, it is commonplace on the computers of Millennials and they see it as a normal part of their Internet experience. Millennials have examples of modern social movements, giving them a foundation to build off and examples to follow when they begin to formulate their own fights for change.

Though many might not realize it, Millennials have already acted as a part of a large grassroots movement, adding fodder to the argument that Millennials are up to the challenge of starting a movement of a similar nature on their own. This movement, the campaign for President-elect Barack Obama, showed that the number of Millennials and their determination to commit to a cause could make a difference.  During the 2008 presidential election, 23 million youth over the age of 18 voted (CIRCLE). While 23 million makes up 53 percent of youth voters, it makes up only around 23 percent of all Millennials when one takes into account those Millennials not yet of age to vote, bringing the count of Millennials in America to around 100 million by 2018, when all will be of age to vote[1] (Leyden, 4). If this group was given so much importance during the 2008 elections with only 23 million voters, the importance of this voting group in future elections will be even greater. Their sheer numbers will allow Millennials to make a difference in igniting national, and even global, change. Given the expected size of the Millennial Generation in years to come, their ability to engender change through political methods such as propositions, laws and government agencies seems possible. One needs only to look at how the grassroots Students for Barack Obama organization started as a simple Facebook group in 2006 and turned into a sponsored group with 208,959 Facebook supporters. Millennials’ connectivity through advanced technology allows them to successfully garner support for a cause across the nation, as they did for the 2008 election. By altering the political atmosphere domestically, Millennials should be able to help grassroots social movements spread quickly and efficiently, thus affecting change on a global scale.

Today, more than ever before, the issue Millennials will need to combat through social change is that of global warming stimulated by the mass production of waste. In his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, journalist Thomas Friedman argues that by the end of the twentieth century, globalization put more people worldwide on the same economic playing field, thus “enabling more people than ever, from more places than ever to take part in the global economy – and, in the best of cases, to enter the middle class” (29). This entrance into the middle class, Friedman argues, allowed 200 million people to consume and produce more things, which uses more energy, natural resources, land and water than ever before (31). As more developing nations are elevated to the middle class, their people are able to afford basic luxury items such as televisions, cell phones and computers, eventually leading to more waste. Further, Friedman argues that advancement in computer technology, with items such as browsers and search tools that have made the Internet more user friendly, has “made the Internet accessible to everyone from five-year-olds to ninety-year-olds” (“Flat” 62). These technological advancements have helped open the Internet up to a wider demographic, meaning that even those in less affluent neighborhoods can access computers and learn how to use them. This type of connectivity, while it may have seemed revolutionary in the 1990s, is commonplace today. But affordability and convenience of using these items have spurred a massive growth in consumption over the last decade, meaning that as these tools wear out and are replaced, people are adding to already high levels of waste, which is directly harming the environment and bring about global warming.

Though the production of waste is nothing new, a different type of waste known as electronic waste, or e-waste, is increasingly causing concern. E-waste is often produced by electric currents used to operate and contain a hard-drive or other large electronic component and often contains hazardous substances such as lead or mercury. The increase in technological consumption and dependency has led to a greater amount of e-waste once these items break or become outdated and people toss them out. A Brisbane, Australia report shows that waste from electronic equipment is “becoming a significant component of the waste stream, increasing at a rate of 3-5% per annum, outstripping the general growth of the municipal waste stream” (“Conservation”). If e-waste could become the leading type of waste in Australia, there is not telling what it will become in world powers such as the United States. In October 2007 at one landfill in Richmond, Virginia, Supreme Asset Management and Recovery, one of the leading waste disposal services in the U.S., dumped 37 tons of e-waste (Elgin, Grow, Gibson). E-waste is dangerous to the environment because it can ignite when exposed to water and produce flammable methane gas, according to a Business Week article (Elgin, Grow, Gibson). The production of waste, specifically e-waste, has become the signature environmental problem that Millennials will have to face in the future. Thought it was their parents’ generation, the Baby Boomers, who created these problems and started the drive toward greater production of waste, Millennials will be left with cleanup.

But Millennials are their own worst enemy when it comes to fighting global warming as they are a generation known for their technological dependency, creating a dichotomy that it will not be easy for them to resolve among themselves. This generation relies heavily on computers, with 23 percent saying they cannot live without a computer (Howe and Strauss, “Rising” 273). These numbers show how much more important computer technology is to Millennials than previous generations. Millennials have been shaped by this ability to be constantly connected, or wired, and the need for immediacy the Internet has created. Unlike their parents, Kathryn C. Montgomery argues in her piece for The Future of Children, children in the Millennial Generation embrace the digital age and explore the Internet with fewer reservations (147). The introduction of digital media at such an early age makes youth more adept at using technology and more dependent on the services it provides than previous generations. They are truly children of the new Millennium and the reliance on technology it has created.

One would expect a group of people charged with the responsibility to help stop global warming and become a more sustainable society would have a deep connection with the environment, but Millennials have become increasingly detached from nature throughout their youth. An increase in consumerism and growing dependence on technology has affected Millennials’ connection with nature, and though they might have the right characteristics and drive to be the generation to fight the ravaging of the environment, this is nothing without a respect of the thing they are attempting to save. Richard Louv argues in his book The Last Child in the Woods that the Millennial generation played outside less frequently as children, calling into question their connection with nature. “Not that long ago, the sound track of a young person’s days and nights was composed largely of the notes of nature…Today, the life of the senses is, literally, electrified. One obvious contributor is electronics: television and computers” (Louv, 57). It is the lack of green space and parents’ fears, Louv says, that have caused this shift toward more playing indoors. One could make the connection that if Millennials have spent less time outside and are thus less connected to nature, then the need to protect nature and the environment might not be as strong. This does not take into account, however, that many Millennials were raised with constant reminders to protect the environment – recycle, conserve water and electricity, don’t litter. Louv counteracts his argument to some degree when he concedes that many college-aged Millennials “…have tasted just enough nature to intuitively understand what they have missed…” (Louv, 4). Hopefully the nostalgia for a childhood filled with nature will encourage Millennials to take on the role as heroes for the environment. Further, their understanding of social movements and their ability to start one at a grassroots level should help them create a more sustainable world. The growth in technology has undeniably impaced Millennials’ connection with nature, yet this does not change the fact that they have grown up saturated with expectations to make big changes. 

While not as prominent as the challenges Millennials have created for themselves, they will face many other barriers in their work to stop global warming. Millennials simply might not comprehend the vast nature of the problem at hand. According to a study on climate change from the Pew Center on Climate Change, the United States is currently responsible for 25 percent of carbon gas emissions leading to global warming but gas emissions from developing countries are expected to more than double and surpass developed countries by the year 2018 (Pew, “Climate Change 101” 5). These figures show that it is not only the U.S. that is responsible for the world’s climate problems, but developing countries such as India and China are beginning to make equal contributions to pollution as their standards of living rise and they become part of the consumer masses. Pollution does not recognize state borders as people do and pollution is truly a world issue because it affects all countries, no matter how much they are contributing to the issue. Thus, it will take world mobilization to solve these problems. Friedman, however, argues that in a post 9/11 world, nations have closed themselves off and that “we as a nation [the United States] have put up more walls than ever and in the process owe have disconnected ourselves emotionally, if not physically, from many of our natural allies and our natural instincts to embrace the world” (“Hot” 8).  The oldest of the Millennials would have been 19 years old on 9/11, thus, they have spent the better part of their early-adult life conforming to the new global rules the U.S. created for itself after the attacks. This does not bode well for Millennials being familiar with global means of diplomacy to solve such an all-encompassing problem. Completely revolutionizing the entire world’s consumer habits to make the world more sustainable is not something that only American Millennials can accomplish, this will need to be a battle fought from all corners of the globe in order to see progress. Millennials have certainly shown that they are capable of mobilizing to fight for causes they believe in, but they might not have the global wherewithal to become catalysts for change around the world. They will need to do more than change sustainability practices domestically to see the desired effect.

Despite the challenges Millennials have created for themselves, there is something almost heroic in the Millennials’ task to put right the world by fixing environmental problems faced today, and Millennials seem destined to play this role of the hero. Howe and Strauss note that a “hero generation,” one that performs great deeds, develops once every four generations and the Millennials possess many of the attributes that lead to such a group of individuals. Living through social upheaval such as 9/11, following the oft-considered disappointing Generation X, and constant promotion of its achievements all poise the Millennials at the edge of becoming a “hero generation.” (Howe and Strauss, “Rising” 376). Their ability to take on such a role also stems from the dissolution of the G.I. Generation, the last hero generation before the Millennials. Their potential to take on this role makes Millennials more than capable to battle important world issues and take a stand to fight for sustainability and a more “green” society. Howe and Strauss further make the claim that Millennials have a “rendezvous with destiny” in which “history will propel them to be and do what Boomers and Gen Xers were not and did not do” (Howe and Strauss, “Rising” 360).  This juxtaposition between Millennials and their predecessors further places them in a position of unique importance because the Boomers have almost lost their opportunity to induce change and Gen Xers are simply not expected to. Thus all generations are turning to the Millennials to take their place and do what they could not.

Called the next “hero” generation since birth, Millennials have a big responsibility, fill the shoes of the dying G.I. Generation and take on the global environmental crisis that their parents have left them. As today’s youth grow up and begin to take on leadership positions in the government and corporations, they will soon grow into the charge that has been placed before them. Learning to place aside their need for technology and their wasteful habits will be the greatest struggle they face as they strive to make the society in which they live more sustainable and work to combat global warming. But on the way to reaching this goal, Millennials might be tested and humbled, reminding them that while their parents have called them special and coddled them throughout adolescence, they will have to sacrifice their own dependence on technology to effectively ignite a global sustainability movement. The world looks to Millennials to create a solution to this energy crisis, but they must learn to reconcile the contradictory nature of their generation and the role they must play in order for a successful social movement to emerge.

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[1] These numbers assume that the Millennials Generation starts in 1978 and extends through 2000, which varies from the generational period Howe and Strauss use for Millennials from 1982 to 2000. 

Running Through Life

I believe in the steadiness of pavement. I trust that as my feet fall on the hard surface, it will be there ready to propel my legs back into motion. No matter where my runs take me, I know the pavement will be there to absorb the impact of my footfall and along with it, the shock of my thoughts as I let them loose on the road.

For me, running is more than a form of exercise . It is the one sliver of time I reserve for myself everyday, a time where I am alone with only my thoughts as company.

I haven’t always been a runner. My dad first enrolled me in a youth running club when I was in second grade. I never had an interest in soccer like other girls my age. Running, he thought, I could excel in. But I hated it.

I dreaded going to practices once a week and looked forward to the weekend races with even greater dislike. The act of putting myself through such strenuous, and sometimes painful, exercise was difficult for me to understand at the age of seven. I remember one race on a rainy Seattle morning. The course wound through a forested park. I felt lost, scared and frightened as I panted along the muddy dirt paths trying to follow the girl in front of me. Halfway through the run I saw my parents at a popular cheering point. Instead of using their cheers to propel myself to the finish, I immediately sprinted to them.

“Don’t make me do this,” I pleaded with them. They hug

ged me but pushed me back out on the course, telling me I should finish the race. Needless to say, I quit the club a few weeks later.

I then tried a series of sports over the next few years. Softball? I broke my arm during the first season and was relegated to the outfield where it was unlikely much action would come my way. Tennis? I could barely make contact with the ball and ended up looking like a fish floundering on dry land. Guess that didn’t work for me either. Basketball? The two points I scored that season were my crowning achievement. But my diminutive  5’2” frame didn’t give me much of a height advantage. Looks like I would need to keep searching.

Then in high school I rediscovered running. I joined the cross country team, trained hard, made varsity and helped propel my team to a second place finish at the state championship. Running taught me discipline and endurance. And as I got more involved in school and busier each day, I found that I began to rely on those hours I spent alone on the road. Whether I was angry, sad, stressed or happy, I would run. It has become a way for me to process my thoughts, without fear of other voices clouding my own.

I have had countless imaginary conversations during long runs, playing out scenarios that won’t ever become reality. I need this time alone to myself. It’s important that no matter how out of control my life seems to become, I have the consistency of running. Without it, my day feels disjointed and incomplete. 

Sure, the pavement and I have had our squabbles. While running does not require the hand-eye coordination other team sports do, the simple task of placing one foot in front of the other has often proved to be a challenge for me. In high school it was considered a successful day if my team came back from a run and I had not fallen, and I became used to the idea that I might have skinned knees for weeks.

I remember one particularly embarrassing run. My team had been hiking up a mountain with several precarious trails and I made it up to the top without incident. On our way back down, we decided to jog. We had almost reached the end of the trail and the parking lot where our cars were parked when my feet flew out from underneath me and I ended up face first in the dirt. My teammates helped me up, dusted me off, and led me to our car. But the scrape on my upper thigh was so bad that my coach had to find the first-aid kit before we could drive home.

Though it has been a while since I last had a “falling incident,” it seems my clumsiness is something I will not outgrow. But even falling has become part of my running routine, making me more conscious of my footsteps.

It’s hard for me to imagine a day when I don’t run. C

oming to college, it was a given that I would run for whichever school I decided to attend. But somehow running with my college team wasn’t what I expected it to be. Sure, I made the varsity team and ran in the PAC-10 cross country championship during my freshman year, but there was something missing. By my sophomore year I realized I needed a break from the team and from running.

The last year I have spent rediscovering my passion for running. Quitting the team has taken away the pressure. When I first started running it was my escape from stress and almost therapeutic. But the team made it something I was required to do, something I began to dread and one of the activities in my life that added to my stress.

Now I run when I feel like it. I listen to my body and run until it doesn’t feel good anymore. It has again become something I look forward to, something I need to sort through the jumble of confused thoughts in my head.

And as the pavement greets me each morning, I look forward to each step I will take. For those precious minutes my busy day seems far off, the stress piled onto my shoulders falls away and my head becomes clear. No matter where I run, the pavement is always there, steady under my feet and guaranteed to eventually lead me home, with or without a few bumps and bruises along the way. 

Me after the PAC-10 Cross Country Championship at Stanford University

Is Google Making us Stupid? No. Diverse? Yes.

In his Atlantic Monthly article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that the advent of the Internet has caused readers to become adverse to reading long sections of text, making them more prone to skimming when reading online and – in 

extreme cases – forcing them to give up on reading novels completely. In a world where people seem to be in a constant hurried state and become impatient when it takes more than five seconds for a Web page to load, it’s not surprising that people tend to skim when surfing the Web. However, Carr paints a picture of a world split into an unlikely dichotomy, one where readers either skim texts online or don’t read at all. His argument, which accurately pinpoints the ways in which people use the Internet, does not take into consideration the different types of content people receive from the Internet and printed texts and ignores the ability of readers to consume both types of information separately, benefiting differently from both. 

The Internet provides the world with a vast database of knowledge. Carr says himself that “research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.” But people who use the Internet are not often looking for an in-depth analysis but a cursory knowledge. Take, for example, people who use the Internet to consume their daily news. With the creation of RSS feeds, people can now receive up-to-date headlines of the nation’s most important news without ever having to physically click on a news source’s Web site. People using RSS feeds are clearly not reading full articles, but skimming through the headlines to give themselves a general understanding of current events. 

Books, on the other hand, are by nature meant for a more in-depth reading experience. Whether they are textbooks providing lengthy explanations about complex processes or novels meant for pleasure and enjoyment, a reader expects – and many times craves – that fulfilling experience of starting and finishing a book, knowing that every word has been read and then mulled over to ensure that the full meaning has been extracted. Just because one turns to the Internet daily for the cursory sweep of the day’s headlines, does not take away from that person’s ability to concurrently sit down and dig into a full-length novel.

A study done by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows, in fact, that the growth of the online news audience has slowed since 2000. Online news has become a supplemental source for news, with many people under 40 still turning to traditional news sources for detailed, in-depth reporting, the study found. The stabilizing of online news consumption shows that people are still turning to other sources for their news. If readers are continuing to turn to newspapers for in depth stories, then their ability to read and comprehend these stories should also remain, showing that it is not their ability to read that is declining. But a recent eyetrack study by the Poynter Institute shows that there is not statistical evidence that people find it difficult to read online. In fact, in a comparison between people who read online and people who read print, 23 percent more people read online stories to completion than print stories. Online readers were also just as likely to be methodical readers as they were to be scanners. This shows that while Carr and other like him may be experiencing an inability to read lengthy texts since the advent of the Internet, people suffering problems such as these are just as common as people who have maintained their ability to absorb lengthy texts both online and off.  

Since there is clearly a section of the population who note an inability to read online, perhaps there is something more than just their own waning attention that is causing this phenomenon. In a blog by Sara Quinn, a member of the visual journalism faculty at the Poynter Institute, she strives to look at what makes reading online difficult. Quinn notes that typefaces we are accustomed to in printed text do not translate well to a computer screen, taking away from the smoothness of printed text and making it more difficult for our brains to process what we are reading. Low-resolution monitors, the most common monitors found for an average person’s computer, also make it more difficult to read because they have fewer pixels, which means the legibility of the words decreases. Further, the light emitted by a monitor can be strenuous on the eyes, making it harder for readers to concentrate on the text they are attempting to absorb. 

Of those tested in the Poynter Eyetrack, 56 percent were between the ages of 18-41 and 44 percent were between the ages of 42-60. This causes one to question whether or not generational differences affect the way that we process information with the increased use of the Internet. Carr, and many of the colleagues he mentions in his article, are above the age of 40. They are a part of the Baby Boomer generation for whom Internet didn’t burst onto the stage until they were well into there 30s. But for the Millennial Generation, those students who entered college beginning in the new millennium, Internet has been a part of our reality since the beginning of our formative adolescent years.

I was raised in a family that promoted the reading of books. Both my parents would read in the evenings while I sat working on my homework. Now that I have reached the age where I am both mentally and socially mature enough to read the same novels as them, we often exchange books and recommend titles to one another. But, at the same time, I grew up with the Internet. I can’t remember a time when my house didn’t have a computer and I didn’t know how to go online to find information. Certainly using the Internet has become easier with the demise of dial-up connections and the creation of wireless. But I represent the Millennial at its very core, constantly wired and connected yet appreciative of the benefits of reading in print; the feel of a book in one’s hand, the sound of the turning of pages and the ability to sit and re-read texts over and over to extract their full meaning.

In Mokoto Rich’s article for the New York Times – “Literacy Debate, Online: R U Really Reading?” – he describes a young Millennial, Zachary Smith, who also finds a way to settle the difference between reading online and reading books. Smith, who is a freshman at Columbia University, reads political articles online, but mentioned to Rich in his interview that he also read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand this summer. Smith’s ability to do both allows him to gain different skills from each type of reading, corroborating information quickly from online and using deep cognitive skills when reading novels. Smith too represents the Millennial Generation and their ability to gather information from a variety of sources, all the while drawing information and a deeper meaning. 

Carr is accurate in saying that “the kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds.” But what his generational gap blinds him from seeing is that deep reading can happen concurrently with the type of periphery analysis that happens from skimming online. The Millennial Generation has been brought up on the concept of excelling in many areas and having multiple, diverse talents. Thus, it is not impossible for Millennials to spend all day surfing the Web, only to pick up a copy of War and Peace later that evening.  

What is more frightening for the Millennial Generation than a depletion of in-depth reading is the idea of Web 2.0, the development of Web-based communities to allow for greater collaboration. There is so much content on the Web that Millennials are consuming many different things, which has led to a lack of a common culture among them. These days, Web users go online to their personalized news pages and search for music based on their interests, not what iTunes says is the most popular song. Everything online has become so individualized that there is nothing connecting the Millennial Generation to one another. This lack of a common ground causes one to question how the Millennials will shape themselves during this formative time in their lives. What will they look back on and remember as the defining moment of their adolescence? Will it be different for everyone? And if so, then what will happen to the overall responsiveness and mission for this generation? Without a common purpose, this generation will have a difficult time agreeing when it becomes their time to assume leadership roles in this country. And for a generation expected to solve all the problems that the Baby Boomers created, this boasts a difficult roadblock for them to overcome.  

Transforming Reading Experience

I use the summer to escape. I put down all my dry, monotonous class textbooks and usually opt for something a bit juicier. I’ll be honest that usually these novels won’t be found on a best-sellers list and typically leave me with little to mull over when I’ve finished them. But this is usually what my mind craves after a year of analyzing texts and reading strictly for information.

This summer was a bit different. Before my flight home from school, I perused the USC bookstore to find something to read on the plane. Instead of being drawn to some mindless novel, I found myself looking for something with a bit more substance.

I eventually made my way to a display of books on the Middle East. I’d heard several people rave about Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin – a nonfictional story about a mountain climber who builds school in the poor Pakistani villages of the Karakoram – so I decided to give it a try. I also purchased A Thousand Splendid Suns, a book by Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner.

I don’t know where my interest in the Middle East stems from, except that it’s a part of the world the news covers so frequently yet few Americans really understand, myself included.

Mortenson’s book on the mountainous Karakoram that forms Pakistan’s northern border with Afghanistan describes the land with such regard that it completely changed my view of the Middle East as a dusty, barren land. His love of the country and its people made me want to travel there so I could see firsthand the peaks of K2 rise before me.

By the time I had finished the book, I fully believed that peace in the Middle East could be achieved if only the governments spent more time educating their people. I also had no doubt that I would make my way to Pakistan despite the potential political danger.

I read Three Cups of Tea quickly and immediately moved on to Hosseini’s book, eager to read more about the area I felt I had come to understand better through Mortenson’s eyes. Though set in a different time and region, 1960s through present day Afghanistan, A Thousand Splendid Suns also struck a chord in me.

The plight of the Afghanistan women made me realize how easy my life has been.

I once again found myself itching to see Kabul and its devastation for myself instead of relying on the flat images that appear in newspapers and on TV.

But this time, I felt a new pull toward helping these people that I did not feel while reading Mortenson’s novel. So many Afghanis are living as refugees in Pakistan and although I often hear about the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, I rarely hear about what relief we are giving to the refugees.

In the back of the book there is an appendix listing relief organization that people can become involved in if they want to help.

I immediately researched the UNHCR, the UN Relief Agency, and found that they offer internships in several countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan included, and I plan on submitting an application for this summer soon.

Though this internship would not be directly related to my intended career as a journalist, it’s an opportunity I don’t think I can pass up.

These books have helped me realize my desire to learn more about these countries and their people. They have opened my eyes and helped me feel more informed about a region that is significant to current events.