Alan Tennie
Literature Graduate
FEWER than half of Scotland's young teenagers are able to write well, with reading skills only slightly better, according to a recent report. This education scare coincides with the HBO film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451, currently in production.
In this dystopian classic, books are banned. It may seem far-fetched but books and reading have already been marginalised in our culture.
In Bradbury's vision, the public are drugged into compliancy and get their information from wall-length television screens which they are told to view whenever possible. Today the public get their information from 4-inch phone screens.
As part of this digital generation, I grew up surrounded by the temptation of screens, social media, gaming and instant gratification. When this short-term satisfaction is so appetising and readily available, it's to hard to resist.
According to anthropologists, our Stone Age brains have no means of evolutionarily catching up with technological and societal progression. We once craved fats and sugar because they were hard to come by. We now have them on tap, resulting in an obesity crisis.
In education, the development of critical thinking in young people is a priority but these faculties are only exercised by reading tough texts. It's difficult to curb the enticing alternatives offered by technology.
Choosing to watch one more episode on Netflix instead of studying is easy but it's a bittersweet relationship. The internet offers instant access to everything said by the greatest minds but another video of people falling is also tempting. Inspiration can wait.
So where shall we lay blame for slipping educational standards? The Tories blame Labour, the SNP blame the Tories, the parents blame the teachers. I'm not sure who the teachers blame, hopefully not themselves.
We can all share in the blame. Society has settled for mediocrity; trading knowledge for vacuous celebrity stories, astronomy for astrology, news for fake news, and books for whichever TV show boasts the most colours, judges and scripted scandals.
When did we replace the pedestals of Darwin and Orwell with Kardashian and Cowell? And who benefits from this exchange?
Books are often no longer seen as an insight into lives, minds and cultures but rather something to be painfully trudged through and semi-digested on Wikipedia by young people.
With this faux-education, hoping to learn everything about Animal Farm from a five minute, fast-cut video on YouTube, we are offered the illusion of knowledge, but really learn nothing.
Reading offers the mind some well needed respite from an ever accelerating society, exercising its slow-burning faculties responsible for imagination, innovation, intelligence and wit.
So the next time you see a child flicking through their latest smartphone, ask yourself if what they are looking at will inspire them to change the world.
Or is it more of the same, rebranded and renamed, ready-made and mass-produced drivel, devoid of any substance?
As Bradbury so finely put it: “You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”.
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