The rise of Generation Z

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Almost four million children in the UK do not own a book, according to a report by the National Literacy Trust. (source)

Experts estimate that nearly 40 percent of U.S. 4th graders do not achieve basic levels of reading proficiency. (source)

Today's children are reading less than seven years ago as their time is taken up with other activities, research suggests. (source)

Computers are 'wrecking children's reading skills as they abandon library books'. (source)

Myself being an Icelander, this issue is of particular interest to me, considering how maniacal Icelanders are about books. Well, let us dig a little deeper then. It is a fact that today's children are different from previous generations, in that they spend much less time reading books... while we, their parents, probably often tell ourselves that the time they are spending online with a tablet in their hands is wasted time. But are the children of the "digital" generation actually as illiterate as some of us imagine?

My 3 year old son is having no troubles selecting games from the menu on a tablet. My 5 year old daughter can create and delete files, draw pictures, update programs and change settings on her laptop. If you ask an IT expert, they might say that the kids demonstrate about a 80% computer proficiency. If you ask a sociologist, they would conclude that these are the kids of the so called Generation-Z.

They are the children who were born roughly between 1995 and 2010. They live entirely immersed in the digital technologies. (I am speaking of the developed world of course). And though many of them may not seem to be too friendly to grammar and spelling, we could not say outright that they are illiterate. Definitely not even in what we understand to be the conventional interpretation of the term.

In fact if we investigate a little more, the first great surprise is that the Generation-Z kids are extremely educated and informed, they mature early and they often exhibit logical and mental skills that we are used to observing in kids at a much later age. The vast majority of them usually continue their education in secondary school and beyond. It is this generation that is with the highest rate of use of digital readers. If we look closer, we might realise that many of them actually possess and regularly use personal libraries that dwarf anything any previous generation has ever had.

It is essentially a transition from the Britannica era to the Wikipedia era. In the 21st century, the information gap between the old "paper" generations and the new "digital" generations is seemingly deeper than ever. And Wikipedia is one of the most eloquent pieces of evidence for that. The younger generations perceive the web encyclopedia as more reliable and useful than the conventional encyclopedias that are compiled by academicians.

The reason is that the so called Generation-Z gives a priority to visual information. The forecasts point to a tendency that by the time these Z-kids have become adults, the video images will have achieved a complete domination over printed word as a main conveyor of information. Which by the way brings us back to our monthly topic. =)

But how should the gap be closed between the "old" culture and "the new"? And should it be? Well, it certainly cannot be done by putting them against each other, but instead through reconciliation of their differences. And this means that the traditional, "outdated" models should not automatically be contrasted and opposed to every new fashion wave. And these waves tend to alternate through ever accelerating intervals.

The Generation-Z and those coming after it are complex social phenomena, and they should be approached through simultaneous engagement on many levels, using many channels of communication. The printed books will not die completely, but they will certainly be no longer dominant. And the next page in this development is sure to be turned very soon, and it will be written by those born after 2010. Those kids will be starting school earlier than "usual", and they will be spending more time for studying. Their knowledge will be deeper, more universal and more profound than ours. The next generation, now dubbed the Alpha-Generation, will probably be more materialistically orientated and technologically versed, and it will continue what Generation-Z has already begun. And that is a full transition away from the traditional "Gutenberg" authorities of the 20th century, and continuity in the direction that has already been taken.

Comments

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[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

There is a clear literacy problem, at least in the US, and we're in a bit of a wild west zone in the US, at least.

On one hand, more people are reading, and people are reading more. The rise of the ereader and ease of getting Kindles/Nooks and related apps into the hands of people have definitely expanded the literature footprint. While a lot of this growth is threatened to be stunted by the ongoing copyright disputes, the last few years have clearly helped this situation.

On the other, much of the issue is the Potterfication of the written word. Yes, a majority of people appear to have read at least one book this past year. Much of the reading being done is of works that are the current trend - everyone reading Harry Potter or Twilight or Fifty Shades. Even so, something like The Hunger Games, which was the it book before Fifty Shades took off, only had about 36m copies in print at its height - assuming only United States sales and each copy being read by two people (due to lending and libraries), we're still seeing 80% of the population basically having no clue outside of the title at best. Even Fifty Shades has 60m worldwide for the whole trilogy, which is a publishing marvel for sure, but is hardly balanced against the whole, especially given how much of a cultural touchstone it became.

Even with the ereader explosion, though, I wonder how normal I am - I have about 430 books on my Kindle, give or take. I won't pay full price for a book on the Kindle store with few exceptions, and at least a quarter of those, if not more, are free books either due to their being in the public domain or prerelease titles I received for work. My aunt has a Kindle, and uses it solely to take books out from the library or to read the old public domain books she never got to earlier in life. How many people with ereaders are reading significantly more than they had before? Especially if the Kindle or Nook you have are the tablet, rather than ereader version.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You do realize that 1) previous decades had no end to shit novels and bad writing, we just forget they existed because of nostalgia filters, and 2) that the consequence of expanding the literate population is a great many people interested in reading books who aren't necessarily interested in reading The Brothers Karamazov or The Odyssey. A larger audience isn't going to emulate the reading tastes of a smaller one, and the previous smaller generations of audiences like politics more because they were written by the politically savvy class for the politically savvy class. That class then as now a minority and a decided minority at that of the overall population.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Of course, but I'm not sure what this reply is supposed to be addressing.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Your point about 'Potterification' of literature. Nobody remembers all the Kit Carson novels and Spring-Heeled Jack penny dreadfuls of the 19th Century, but it turned out just as much dreck as our present literature. If the past looked more attentive, it's because writers and readers alike were a smaller, more select group. A larger one includes all the people who love to read but frankly my dear don't give a damn about political questions that are gone with the wind.

I'd actually be impressed to see how many people know the origin of the episode of TNG that this icon references. Even if they can place the book, they're unlikely to know the specific scene.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I wasn't clear, reading back. I'm curious as to the inflated reading numbers being due to these significant culturally-popular novels, not that they're necessarily good or bad.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

Are they simply not interested in reading good books, or are they incapable of understanding, learning from and enjoying quality literature because of poor reading skills, watered down education and deficiencies of intellect and imagination brought on by the Disneyfication of literary and cultural influences during their formative years? Either way, there may be a downside to the rise of philistinism, anti intellectualism and junk literature.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's quite rich from the political end of the spectrum currently banking most on appealing to the lowest common denominator. It's worth noting that best-selling books do not, as a whole, tend to be well-written from a literary POV.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Few poorly written books win long term favour among the reading public. They come and they go. Books with enduring appeal become part of the canon.
I agree with you, however, that the political left has done enormous harm to education and literacy with anti-intellectual initiatives that pander to the lowest common denominator and appeal to the knuckle dragging mob. Lowering academic standards, political correctness and various forms of classroom censorship are great examples. In particular, book burning lefties try to reduce the number of good books available to students by tearing up the canon, aka the War on Dead White Males.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Hemmingway, DH Lawrence,Kerouac, Bukowski, Henry Miller, Doyle, etc. were all considered low-brow "pop-culture" authors, not particularly well written, and in many cases considered badly written trash. In fact, I could even be convinced that these are trash written for the lowest common denominator. However hindsight being 20/20, these authors have had the status elevated for a number of reasons. If one were to solely cite the influence on literature these authors have had, it would be profound.

Today's best selling novels are indeed trashy... Interview with a Vampire, Harry Potter, Twilight, Shades of Grey, just to point out the fiction. But best selling writers go beyond fiction. There's also crappy political shit (Ann Coulter), self help shit (Rhonda Byrne), and unauthorized biography shit.

Evolution is not a linear process. We've come a long way since the King James Bible and Shakespeare. In the last decades we've expanded the use of hashtags, backslashes and semicolons. Dictionaries have evolved and Thesauruses expanded. We have different dictionaries for legal, medical, and even urban environments.

There is no doubt in my mind that the most influential authors of this decade are not people, but formats. Twitter helped organize revolutions. Facebook keeps us in touch with family and friends. And the list will no doubt grow.

Are kids reading? There are more billboards and warning labels then ever before. I don't think one needs to understand every ten dollar word to be considered literate, Our kids text, tweet, pm, post, in new short forms undecipherable by some but communicated clearly to intended recipients.

I think we have to expand our definition of what being "literate" means. Is it really such a restrictive term? I would like to think it's progressed over the years. The ability to read and write is obviously a communication skill. Kids are more apt at this skill then our forefathers.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

You say that The Hunger Games had 36m in print. I wonder if that includes e-copies of the book? I'm willing to bet a sizable group of people are now not buying print copies of books. On the train, on the way to work, I see 10 e-readers to every book I see.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

"In print" does include ebook copies sold.