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If you’re like me, during Welcome Week you received the dreaded email: “Don’t forget to read chapter one before the first class!”
You groaned, you opened your textbook, you counted how many pages of suffering awaited. You decided the reading was too much effort, closed the book and shrugged, hoping for the professor to suddenly change their mind and give everyone who didn’t read extra credit. Maybe you pulled up ChatGPT and asked for a summary. After all, how important could class readings be?
The truth is: very important.
Long-form readings like novels and textbook chapters have major benefits for brain development and learning. They require time, which means sitting with an idea and thinking about it more deeply than you would, say, an email, which requires much less time to read. Furthermore, in a longer text, we must be able to follow the author’s line of thinking, which means analysis of how points build on one another. All of these skills are not only beneficial for school, but also in regular life.
At all levels of education, educators have been calling out declining “reading stamina” for years. Students no longer have the attention span to read 20, even 10, pages in one sitting, especially dense academic writing that needs close reading.
When I wrote the dreaded phrase “attention span,” you probably guessed the culprit. Today’s college students are among the first to grow up in a digital age. Every student has a cell phone in their pocket, which about 72% of high school teachers surveyed by the Pew Research Center say are a major distraction in the classroom. This is further evidenced by the state of Indiana’s recent ban on cell phones in schools. Constant phone use in the classroom can certainly follow those students into college, and constant phone use can certainly erode attention spans.
Cell phones are a great tool for instant gratification. When we use our phones, we don’t have to wait for the next Instagram reel or YouTube short. And we are incredibly used to being on our phones. About 85% of American adults surveyed in 2025 said they check their phone within ten minutes of waking, and about 76% felt “uneasy” leaving the house without their phone. In this kind of environment, it is incredibly difficult to focus on tasks that delay gratification, such as reading a chapter in a textbook.
Adam Kotsko, a professor of Classics at North Central College in Illinois, also cited the shift to teaching in K-12 more oriented toward standardized testing. In the case of reading, that means teaching students how to read and comprehend a short passage rather than a longer text. Because better test scores lead to more funding for a school, the emphasis makes sense, Kotsko writes, but it is also incredibly harmful for students who plan to attend college and will need the skills to understand longer passages.
That isn’t to mention student willingness to read class texts, which has admittedly always been low. And of course, that isn’t entirely on students. Professors sometimes assign readings that they never mention in class and that don’t come up on exams, which can discourage students from reading even if the content would enhance learning.
On the students’ side, the new era of AI we are entering is making it easier to neglect class readings. After all, AI can pull up a summary of that textbook chapter in less than a minute. Reading the AI summary requires much less time and effort.
It is a poor substitute for real reading, though. A summary may help give a brief overview of class topics, but true mastery comes from engaging with and understanding a text inside and out.
The harm that is done is clear. If students cannot, or do not, read as much, professors must adjust their syllabi, and the quality of a college education suffers. They are no longer able to cover as much material or go as in depth as they would have 10 years ago.
That isn’t to say that a college education is no longer worth your hard-earned money and your time. Professors are still experts in their field, and a lot can still be learned from them. Not to mention the other benefits of college, like social learning.
Us college students aren’t to blame for all of these problems. But we can take matters into our own hands.
Liz Stillwaggon Swan, a professor of technical and scientific writing at the University of Colorado, writes about taking time to read intentionally and to read something that you enjoy. The more you read, the easier it will be to read more advanced materials in the future. It will also be easier to read more in one sitting. The best way to start is to seek out something you are truly interested in, put down your phone, and dedicate yourself to reading it.
Sit down and read intentionally. Take notes. Look things up.
Sasha Burton is a junior studying elementary education with minors in Spanish and English.
