In one of my favourite movies Clueless, the film based on Jane Austen’s novel Emma, the now popular high - school student Tai dismisses the advice of her girlfriend Cher, who made her popular, saying “why am I even listening to you - you are a virgin who can’t drive.”
This killer put down was, as Cher says, “way harsh.” Today, thirty years after Clueless, the high - school students are virgins who can’t read.
This piece on Substack has caught the imagination.
In it a college professor informs us that the average American college student today cannot read or write in an intelligible way.
“I’m not saying our students just prefer genre books or graphic novels or whatever. No, our average graduate literally could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read. They just couldn’t do it. They don’t have the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read, and most certainly not the attention span to finish. For them to sit down and try to read a book like The Overstory might as well be me attempting an Iron Man triathlon: much suffering with zero chance of success.”
The author says that “reading bores them” which I find very depressing and “reading anything more than a menu is a chore and to be avoided.”
The students also cannot write. “Their writing skills are at the 8th-grade level. Spelling is atrocious, grammar is random, and the correct use of apostrophes is cause for celebration. Worse is the resistance to original thought. What I mean is the reflexive submission of the cheapest cliché as novel insight.”
In the STEM subjects they cannot do the maths previous generations were capable of. Unsurprisingly we are told: They are absolutely addicted to their phones.
In October 2024 the Atlantic published a piece headlined “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books. To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.” This was written by Rose Horowitch. In that piece Horowitch says “many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.”
“Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at UVA, told me. “Being bored has become unnatural.” Reading books, even for pleasure, can’t compete with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube.”
This is depressing and profound. If there are fewer people reading Pride and Prejudice – even English graduates – then there will be fewer people out there to appreciate my thoughts on Pride and Prejudice.
Netflix take on Pride and Prejudice
This week saw the election of an American Pope, the 80th anniversary of VE day, a UK - US trade deal and a possible war between India and Pakistan. However, oddly enough, what has been keeping me up at night is the very real possibility of a woke Pride and Prejudice. It was announced that Netflix are to adapt one of the greatest novels in the English ca…
All of this cements my view that I was privileged to be the last generation who grew up without a smartphone.
I am also left asking myself, just what are college students doing today? They are not reading either for course work or for pleasure. There have been plenty of articles saying that not only is old fashioned dating rare but the youth aren’t even having sex any more. Or at least not nearly as much as parents were at that age. This is the despite them living in the most sexually liberal cultures ever. It follows that I can no longer bemoan the ways of the sexed up youth anymore.
(Dating - as rare as reading Pride and Prejudice.)
To compound things, after living like a bunch of monks in their twenties the next generation is, on current, form less likely to get married and none of the women ever want to have children. Ok, so perhaps I am exaggerating for now – but certainly a lot of the twenty-something ladies want to be “childfree” so they can spend more of their time on TikTok. If they do have children they will tell you how miserable motherhood is and how they nearly died in childbirth. Miserable motherhood is the only genre on motherhood that ever gets published these days. This piece in the Sunday Times last week is headlined Motherhood is all out F&*king war.
The men sadly are addicted to porn.
The generation drink less, which is probably a good thing, but they are also vegan which is odd. They socialise less with friends and don’t go to pubs or clubs.
If they are not reading or meeting their mates for a drink or having sex with their girlfriend or even reading a book then what are they doing? Instead of doing any of these fulfilling activities they are on their phones. All the time. No wonder they are all depressed and anxious. I’m depressed and anxious just thinking about it.
Wasting your time on TikTok is not a life. It is a slow death that has resulted in men and women being cut off from their fellow beings. It’s time to make the Next Generation human again.
Excellent article Laura. I find another thing that the current younger generations are poor at investing money and living frugally.
Very astute, Laura, although I'm going to have to deduct a point for displaying a photo of a man wearing brown shoes with a blue suit. It's one thing to describe the shortcomings of the latest generation but you don't have to show it!