外刊阅读20241218｜年轻人不再看书，理由其实很充分

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Nationwide, college professors report steep declines in students’ willingness and ability to read on their own. To adapt, instructors are assigning less reading and giving students time in class to complete it. It’s tempting to lament the death of a reliable pathway to learning and even pleasure. But I’m beginning to think students who don’t read are responding rationally to the vision of professional life our society sells them. In that vision, productivity does not depend on labor, and a paycheck has little to do with talent or effort. For decades, students have been told that college is about career readiness and little else. And the task of puzzling out an author’s argument will not prepare students to thrive in an economy that seems to run on vibes.

Even in the ostensibly true depictions of working life that students see, like the “day in my life” videos that were popular on TikTok a couple of years ago, intellectual labor seems optional and entry-level corporate positions seem like a series of rooftop hangouts, free lunches and team-building happy hours — less a job than a lifestyle. And of course the ultimate lifestyle job is being an influencer, a tantalizing prospect that seems always just one viral post away.

The most visible college students are big-time athletes, who these days can earn money — in some cases, millions of dollars — through sponsorship deals. But however hard these students push themselves, their earnings are officially not for their work on the field but for their marketability off it. Once students graduate, the jobs they most ardently desire are in what they proudly call the “ sellout ” fields of finance, consulting and tech. To outsiders, these industries are abstract and opaque , trading on bluster and jargon. One thing is certain, though: That’s where the money is.

All in all, it looks as if success follows not from knowledge and skill but from luck, hype and access to the right companies. If this is the economy students believe they’re entering, then why should they make the effort to read? For that matter, how will any effort in school prepare them for careers in which, apparently, effort is not rewarded? Given all this, it’s easy to lose faith in humanistic learning. Universities themselves offer little solace . They constantly promote the idea that a degree is about earning power above all else. They embrace influencer culture and probably benefit from viral phenomena like Bama Rush. They certainly aren’t shooing away corporate recruiters.

The fact is, not all students aim to sail on vibes. Some want to do work that makes more than money. Some finance majors do, too. And others, God bless them, just want to learn what they can and worry about work later. It’s up to students to decide whether they’ll resist intellectual inertia . All I can do is demonstrate that it is worth it to read, to pause, to think, to revise, to reread, to discuss, to revise again.