Rania Ali-Svedsater’s article does raise a good point concerning the decreasing rate of people who read recreationally since the early 1990s. Ali-Svedsater’s article does a good job providing information on the uptick in the use of Artificial Intelligence and its potential threat to reading.
However, I have two points of contention with Ali-Svedsater’s article. The first is that Ali-Svedsater states “the modern world lacks such emphasis on the written word and often forgets the importance of reading within education and the workforce” and “only a small minority of the population reads.” I know many people of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds at and outside of Andover who read regularly for fun. According to these readers, reading for them isn’t seen as worthless. With all the distractions away from reading today, reading is even more revered. People don’t dismiss others for reading, they profess respect and wish that they did as well. Not only does the social world respect if one reads, but also does the professional world and educational system. Case and point, if you are working for a real estate company, bank or other white collar job (along with many blue collar jobs) you will need to do background research on an asset and conditions surrounding a project, forcing you to read documents, memorandi, charts and write reports. In the case of blue collar jobs, you would still need to read a manual and comprehend instructions. Since education by proxy builds towards employment, schools have the basic goal of teaching you to read and write (and math). If someone is incapable of reading proficiently, they struggle to find good and consistent employment, as is the case for millions of Americans for little fault of their own.
My second point is that, although Artificial Intelligence has accelerated this trend, Ali-Svedsater says that “the proportion of American adults reading literature dropped to less than half between 1992 and 2002.” AI did not exist in the ‘90s and not until recently, making the issue with declining reading rates not attributable to AI. Additionally, people who employ AI have to be at least somewhat literate, otherwise they would be unable to input prompts and requests. While it is true that AI may lead to a decrease in independent and critical thinking, it does not cause a direct decline in reading.
In conclusion, although I agree with Ali-Svedsater’s that people are reading less recreationally, the greater threat is that the increase in chronic illiteracy in the United States persists. With over 20 million Americans unable to read beyond a 5th grade level, serious reforms that have evaded the US throughout the 20th century need to be remediated, instead of fixating on the paucity of how many people read for recreation. We have a duty to those, in the words of Michael Harrington “Other Americans”, to lift people out of poverty, and this must be done through improving literacy. For don’t all Americans have a right to good and complete education?
Signed,
Felix Bret
