The Lost Art of Reading in America As a professor at Amherst College, I've spent two decades teaching humanities and social sciences with the assumption that students would engage with assigned readings.
But recent interactions have left me questioning this premise. Students now ask to skim dense texts rather than discuss them, leaving me wondering if I'm fighting a trend that began before they entered my classroom.
The shift in reading habits isn't confined to Amherst or high school English classes. A 2024 25 survey of 1,250 teachers found an average assignment of just 2.