Huh. Stumbleupon rears its helpful head yet again: http://newslite.tv/2009/04/28/vending-machine-prints-any-boo.html Excerpt:
I don't generally read books. When I try, I don't get through them. Why? The answer to this spans years of my life. When I was a kid I was switched out of the public school system that had us read to ourselves in class as a break from being taught the typical Math, English, etc. The private school I got switched into was another world completely. I went from reading for fun to reading as a fucking mandate so fast that it still isn't funny to look back on. After being accepted to the school in February, I was excited. The public system had been in shambles and I hadn't been learning jack shit. Most of the kids I went to school with loved this setup, but I hated it. Then June rolled around and the "Summer reading" package arrived at my doorstep. I open it up thinking it'll say, read a couple books this summer and do a book report on them in September, your choice, have at it. No. 2 Pages of books and I read the instructions at the top "Read 8 of these books before the end of the summer and be prepared to do a book report on all 8 books you read". Excuse me? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm 12, it's summer, I'm in Sailing camp for 8/14 hours I'm awake. The school's crazy if they thought I was about to read all of these books. September rolled around. I read 2 of the books, reluctantly. That's not to say I didn't read more, I just didn't give a shit about reading their assigned books. I read a few of my own books, I think a new Harry Potter might have been out that summer that I read. Like hell I read 8 off their list. We're talking at age 12, one of the assigned readings was Moby Dick. That's not a short, or easy read for a 12 year old fresh out of the public system, where a complicated read was something other than the Goosebumps series. And then there'd still be 7 more to read. This is where my disdain for reading began. Over the years, I would be assigned book after book that was boring, and used to analyze the literature at a young age, rather than instilling a love for reading in me. I think this is one of the biggest problems, educators fail to make students enjoy reading. They think their job is to just MAKE them read. Anyway, I really don't want to drag this story on any longer. To cut it short, I coasted through high school English off Sparknotes and the help of friends, hating reading all the way through. My reading consisted mainly of political articles online, Sparknotes, and the textbooks for every other course. My love for reading had been beaten to a pulp. It's only recently that I have started to try and read again. I just can't get through books though. I read a few chapters, get distracted by real life for a week, and forget what had happened so far in the book. I don't want to re-read 200 pages, so I just say fuck it and forget about the book. I'm not proud I don't read books, I'm just proud that I don't read and 1) didn't fail high school English (actually did really well off Sparknotes) and 2) I'm not a complete fuck-up at life.
I'd say my level of overall reading has increased since when I was younger, but the amount of physical books that I read has decreased dramatically. That's because the majority of my consumption is from online sources (mostly news sites, articles and technical documentation). Yes, I'll admit that reading fiction is not a big part of my life, unless you count the news sites, which are usually bullshit. For entertainment, I'll 9-times-out-of-10 watch a movie or TV. Why? I find it more enjoyable, it's a faster way to absorb a story line, there's a convenience factor that comes with my large collection of pirated videos, and it gives you something to discuss with other people. Like it or not, asking "did you see that movie?" as opposed to "did you read that book?" will garner a shit ton more positive responses. I do think reading is important - the medium's just unimportant. In my opinion it's not imperative that people read their words on paper, just as long as they read. As for this feeling of proud anti-intellectualism, I think every generation has their shit shovellers - this generation just has easy access to an audience to showcase their ignorance to (I'm looking at you, Facebook).