Students and professors at the University of Rhode Island are adapting to changes made in required reading to accommodate the decline of long-form reading.
Approximately 1 in 3 adults in the United States read at the lowest on a five-level scale, indicating that roughly 59 million adults across the nation are unable to read long-form texts with comprehension, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
“I enjoy reading for my classes a lot,” third-year English major Gabriana Ruggieri said. “I think it’s difficult for both professors and students because learning has changed so much through the development of technology. The joy of learning, reading and thinking has been traded for finding answers as quickly as possible.”
Undergraduate students, including English majors, report being assigned significantly less reading than in the past, though still more than they find comfortable, according to Carolyn Betensky, chair of the English and creative writing department at URI.
Many graduate students now also struggle with the reading loads that were at one point standard, according to Betensky.
“When I was in graduate school we would typically read one 800 [to] 900 page novel a week, as well as criticism,” Betensky said. “Now, even with graduate students, you just can’t do that. It’s just that we have less capacity to read immersively [and] length.
Students face numerous time pressures and alternative sources of entertainment such as social media, streaming videos and gaming, according to Betensky. This reading has been replaced as a primary leisure activity.
“There are so many competing demands on their time and so many competing forms of entertainment,” Betensky said. “People used to read for pleasure, and you can still read for pleasure now, but chances are even if you read for pleasure, you also do other things for pleasure, like social media.”
With the rapid global access to AI, students are more reliant on summaries and shortcuts to avoid long-form readings, according to Betensky. Relying on these tools leads to poor memory retention.
“Last semester, I taught a 100-level course [and] when I had them take a midterm and a final, they had no memory of the texts, as they had read the summary,” Betensky said.
As some believe reading has become culturally reduced to assignments, deadlines and heavy workloads, many educators are working to reclaim its original magic, according to Betensky.
Betensky said she is challenging the notion that books are burdens, reminding students of the joy and connection reading can offer.
People used to consider reading as a source of pleasure, according to Betensky. Now they see it as something they have to do as a chore.
“I would never dream of having my undergraduate students, even English majors, read as much as I used to. I still have them read more than their comfortable reading,” according to Betensky.
