[frompdx]

When I was in high-school 20 plus years ago excerpt based reading assignments were fairly common in non-honors/advanced placement classes. Except there were whole textbooks full of excerpt based assignments instead of computer software for this purpose. Anecdotally I took honors and AP English and those classes destroyed my desire to read for years. I only read a few of the assigned books cover to cover because they were either dreadfully boring or the expectations for how quickly we should read them were more than I, a very average student, could manage. Usually some combination of both. Rather than relying on cliffnotes and sparknotes alone I would typically read the first chapter, the last chapter, and then some chapter in the middle so I was prepared for tests and discussions.

At the end of the day the AP exams didn't test you on your knowledge of The Scarlet Letter or The Great Gatsby. The exam tested you on your ability to read an excerpt and answer questions about it as well as your ability to write a multi-paragraph essay from a prompt while a proctor wearing the most hideous smelling blackberry perfume bathed you in an olfactory assault every time they walked by. In-classroom writing assignments were the most effective way to prepare and we did them frequently. As a reward for doing well you got to skip a couple of 100 level English credits in college.

Sure there are lots of brainrot distractions available to kids today, but it feels like the education system never takes a moment to look inward and acknowledge that The Scarlet Letter and My Antonia are dreadfully boring reads. It took me three tries to finish 1984 because the beginning is such a slog. It is strange to say kids aren't interested in reading (from the article) when a lot of the subject matter is objectively dull. Four of the six books in the article header are books I don't even want to think about let alone read.

[eimrine]

> Sure there are lots of brainrot distractions available to kids today

Take apart the distractions per se, how is it possible to read book for a kid in 2025 at all? Reading thick books requires having some device with no distructions. In my young ages all computers and all smartphones used to have no distructions, but now all computers (except some Linux distros) used to be bombarded with distructions in such a way that I can not read a book on any proprietary OS without getting some notification about anti-virus software or some updates or a need to restart, or just some events happening on the Internets.

My point is not just that distractions distract people, but distructions have become inevitable on almost any modern device able to render PDF with formulas.

[squigz]

> Take apart the distractions per se, how is it possible to read book for a kid in 2025 at all?

Literally buy books? What about ereaders? Install adblockers and de-shittify your OS? I don't have the problems you seem to have, and I'm on Windows.