{"id":519,"date":"2007-02-04T22:05:47","date_gmt":"2007-02-05T03:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/blog\/?p=519"},"modified":"2007-02-04T22:05:47","modified_gmt":"2007-02-05T03:05:47","slug":"is-teen-reading-an-oxymoron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/2007\/02\/04\/is-teen-reading-an-oxymoron\/","title":{"rendered":"Is \u201cteen reading\u201d an oxymoron?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/01\/19\/AR2007011901361.html?sub=AR\">this librarian&#8217;s story<\/a>, it may be becoming one: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I recently spoke with a junior who was stressed about her decreasing ability to focus on anything for longer than two minutes or so. I tried to inspire her by talking about the importance of reading as a way to train the brain. I told her that a good reader develops the same powers of concentration that an athlete or a Buddhist would employ in sport or meditation. &#8220;A lot out there is conspiring to distract you,&#8221; I said.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nShe rolled her eyes. &#8220;That&#8217;s your opinion about books. It doesn&#8217;t make it true.&#8221; To her, the idea that reading might benefit the mind was, well, lame.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On the one hand, I appreciate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theshiftedlibrarian.com\/archives\/2007\/01\/21\/gaming_for_fines.html\">librarians using things like DDR<\/a> to connect with teens, but I&#8217;m anxious that with more &#8220;engaging&#8221; (i.e. distracting) pursuits, reading will continue to be set aside, to our (as a society) long-term detriment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to this librarian&#8217;s story, it may be becoming one: I recently spoke with a junior who was stressed about her decreasing ability to focus on anything for longer than two minutes or so. I tried to inspire her by talking about the importance of reading as a way to train the brain. I told [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,15,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}