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Students and attention spans

Letters to the Editor. Illustration: Paul Scott
The Irish Times - Letters to the Editor.
Fri Oct 11 2024 - 00:07

Sir, – Finn McRedmond on students arriving at college “without the ability to read full books” reminds me that when choosing a university course, the advice given to me and other prospective students was that English and history were not a good combination and that due to the amount of reading involved, such a choice was to be discouraged (“It’s worse than George Orwell imagined. There’s no need to ban books no one wants to read”, Opinion & Analysis, October 10th). As it turned out, from those who chose just one of those subjects there were cries of despair about the amount of reading involved but when both subjects were chosen it was a matter of digging into one and letting the other more or less look after itself.

Perhaps this indulgent attitude to the reduced attention span of our young people means that the less that is expected of them, the less they are capable of achieving. – Yours, etc,

MARION WALSH,

Donnybrook,

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Dublin 4.

Sir, – While Finn McRedmond’s column on the inability of students to read full books eloquently captures the erosion of reading skills, I believe this crisis is not merely due to smartphones or short attention spans.

It is also about the systemic undervaluing of intellectual rigour. By replacing the immersive experience of full novels with bite-sized content, we are raising a generation untrained in sustained critical thinking. The real tragedy is not that students won’t read James Joyce, it is that we no longer expect them to. – Yours, etc,

ENDA CULLEN

Armagh.

Sir, – Finn McRedmond says children don’t read books because they can’t engage with text or follow plots.

So why did they buy 600 million copies of the Harry Potter saga (3,407 pages)? – Yours, etc,

Dr JOHN DOHERTY,

Gaoth Dobhair,

Co Dhún na nGall.