A student struggles to focus on her work. Professors at top universities have noticed that their students have trouble reading and focusing (stock image)
Students at prestigious colleges are finding it increasingly difficult to finish entire books because they do not have the attention span.
Some professors claim they have been forced to reduce reading assignments and lower their expectations to stop students becoming overwhelmed – even though the workload is often less intense than in previous years.
It is not that students are illiterate, they say, but rather that youngsters are not used to ploughing through lengthy texts and struggle to focus for long periods of time – often due to the distraction of social media.
UC Berkeley literature professor Victoria Kahn told The Atlantic she used to assign 200 pages of reading each week, but has now had to half this requirement.
She told the outlet: ‘I don’t do the whole Illiad. I assign books of The Illiad. I hope that some of them will read the whole thing.
‘It’s not like I can say, “Okay, over the next three weeks, I expect you to read The Illiad,” because they’re not going to do it.’
Meanwhile, Greg Wrenn, an English professor at James Madison University, wrote an alarming opinion piece for Al Jazeera about students with TikTok ‘addictions’ and the ‘devastating crisis of attention’ this has caused.
Wrenn wrote: ‘In my environmental literature classes, I’ve seen firsthand the long-term effects of digital cocaine like TikTok on my undergrads.
‘I’m on a mission, probably doomed, to get them to be more present – to appreciate the written word and the natural world, sometimes wearing my wetsuit and dive mask to get their attention when we’re discussing coral reefs and Ralph Waldo Emerson.’
Wrenn said his students often struggle to get through the essays or excerpts he assigns.
He added that some had even told him they had never finished a book in their entire lives.
A TikTok video where a woman jokes about shortened student attention spans
Another student, who wants to be a teacher, told him that she spends at least six hours each day on TikTok.
‘My students are overstimulated – and depressed and exhausted – from mainlining TikTok and Instagram,’ Wrenn said.
He added that each semester he lowers his expectations for students.
Nicholas Dames, a humanities professor at Columbia University, told The Atlantic many of his students seemed bewildered by the thought of reading multiple books in a semester.
He recalled the day his ‘jaw dropped’ when a student told him she had never had to read an entire book in high school and was struggling to handle the coursework.
Anthony Grafton, a Princeton historian, also told the Atlantic that his students typically arrive on campus with a narrower vocabulary than in previous years.
Some educators have become fed up with college students’ lack of ability to do their assignments that they have taken to social media to air their grievances.
One TikToker, @advisorprof, posted a video ranting about students who show up to class unprepared when they had only been asked to do minimal reading.
He said: ‘It doesn’t actually matter how many pages we assign, we used to assign 100, now we assign 20 and still half the class doesn’t read.
‘What are you thinking? Why aren’t you doing your reading? I mean, 20 to 30 pages a week is really not a lot – it’s kind of nothing.
‘When you sit there and stare at your professor with those empty eyes when they ask you a question and you can’t answer it because you didn’t come prepared, do you not feel shame?’
Even some self-aware students have noticed how social media has impacted their attention spans.
One lighthearted TikTok video posted by @veejaxp read: ‘pov: tiktok reduced your attention span so much that you use tiktoks instead of lectures to study’.
In the short clip, college students are seen looking up their study topics on TikTok to see if they can get a 15-second rundown.
Although there is no concrete data proving a rapid decline in students’ ability to read longer texts – requiring them to follow extensive plot lines and retain key details – there is research around declining attention spans in general.
In 2004, the average amount of time a person could focus on one thing was two and a half minutes. Now it is 45 seconds, according to Northeastern Global News.
Teens gather in a circle on their phones. Growing up surrounded by technology has damaged attention spans (stock image)
The problem faced by college professors can also be seen in younger students and relates to a broader issue of illiteracy and nonproficiency in reading.
Some teachers of Generation Alpha are so infuriated by ‘feral and illiterate‘ students they are quitting the profession entirely.
The detrimental combination of excessive technology and the lingering effects of pandemic lockdowns has made 92 percent of leadership at American public schools worried that their children are not meeting academic standards, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Literacy rates among younger students are also alarmingly low.
Two-thirds of American students from fourth to eighth grade are not proficient in reading, according to a literacy report from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions.
The report reads: ‘Literacy – the basic ability to read- is at the heart of all other learning. If students do not learn to read, they cannot read to learn in other subjects.’
About 40 percent of students across the country cannot read at a basic level, the National Literacy Institute reported.
Public school curriculums have placed more emphasis on short texts and standardized tests than more complicated reading comprehension skills.
A TikTok showed students looking for their study topics in 15 second videos instead of referring to their notes or lectures
Over the past few decades, older students are simply reading less. The Atlantic reported that in 1976, nearly 40 percent of high school seniors read at least six books within the year and less than 12 percent did not read any. By 2022, those percentages had reversed.
Under a Reddit post of The Atlantic article, over 70 commenters chimed in to discuss the issue.
One user wrote: ‘I work in education and can confirm every word of this anecdotally, but god it’s depressing to see the trend generalized to such a large scale. The slow death of book culture and the disappearance of a literate public readership is an agonizing thing to witness.’
Another said learning about this made them ‘feel better about going to community college’ because even top students are struggling with reading comprehension.
DailMail.com has reached out to Columbia University, James Madison University and UC Berkley for comment.
Written by Sonya Gugliara for The Daily Mail ~ October 5, 2024