alt Hacker NewsNot all reading is the same. In other words, I wish this article had differentiated between different types of reading. For example, I read that many young adults have picked up reading "new adult" genre books. They enjoy the physical experience of an analog medium and consume one edition after another of popular series. This sounds fine at first, but the content is problematic. These books are not literature, and they may convey problematic views of behavior. For example, they may perpetuate outdated views of relationships between men and women, portraying them as unequal and reproducing clichéd stereotypes from the last millennium.
In short, the article focuses only on the amount of reading, but the content is also important. This should be part of the equation.
I see no reference to this in the article. Nor have you explained why these books are "not literature". This sounds like someone looking at a piece of art, and saying "that's not art".
As we're referencing young adults here, they already have a degree of understanding of the world today. Reading of the past, gives historical context to how the world is today, to why the world is as it is today. I'd have hoped they'd been well exposed to such things in school, and you can be absolutely sure they've been exposed to such things in movies, or music (have you heard some rap music?), or.. you know, this thing called the Internet.
In 12 seconds I can find more untoward content on the Internet, than I could in an entire library or book store.