Editor-in-Chief
It’s no secret that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but can you even judge it by the words on its pages? Students groan over complex books like Into the Wild and Brave New World, texts they often find difficult to understand without further analysis. Even Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series deals with the hard-hitting themes of trauma and self-acceptance. To recognize these often-hidden messages in books, readers have to study books closely, which is different from simply reading for entertainment. And contrary to popular belief, there is nothing wrong with the latter. Books should remain an option for entertainment, and readers shouldn’t be afraid to accept a story at surface value.
The term “anti-intellectualism,” which Merriam-Webster defines as “opposing or hostile to intellectuals or to an intellectual view or approach,” is spreading exponentially as child literacy rates go down and money in the AI business goes up. A 2024 essay in The Atlantic titled “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books” gained a lot of attention after claiming that students at Columbia University were struggling to complete the historic Literature Humanities reading list. The books themselves haven’t changed in difficulty; the perception of reading as an activity has. Due to the rise in short-form content, Gen Z students often associate books with deep thought instead of pleasure. Their solution? They don’t read. According to a study in the research journal iScience, the number of kids who read for fun has dropped 40 percent in the last two decades.
Reading, in the words of YouTuber, writer, and publisher Jananie Velu, is “an intellectual hobby,” unlike watching television or movies. In a video she posted to her YouTube channel, thisstoryaintover, she insists “reading quite literally engages a different part of your brain [than watching a video] because you are using your imagination [to process the information].” While she’s correct that reading stimulates a different part of the brain than watching a video does, Velu fails to acknowledge that films often hold the same complexity and nuances as literature. Velu claims that “reading specifically is very different from other forms of entertainment, which you could argue are simply to turn off your brain,” yet series like Severance, The White Lotus, and Adolescence have massive fanbases of both casual and critical viewers. No one bats an eye when fans choose not to dissect these shows frame by frame. Video media, like many forms of literature, often requires deep analysis to draw the director’s intended conclusion. Nonetheless, many fans of Severance remain oblivious to its strategic foreshadowing and still enjoy the show; on the contrary, many fans of the children’s film Puss in Boots: The Last Wish have analyzed its animation, plot, and score down to the singular frame. Whether the public likes it or not, books and videos require the same level of intellect to to truly derive meaning from them.
Reading is dying, and fearmongers of anti-intellectualism are killing it. So, don’t wait: finish that neglected book on your nightstand, whether you truly “understand” it or not.
(Sources: iScience, The Atlantic, YouTube)
Categories: Opinion