Sunday, February 5, 2012

What the Dickens? Today's children can't handle author's works

An English biographer says children today have attention spans too short to read and appreciate the works of Charles Dickens. I suspect he's not the only author who would fall into that category.

It would be a massive undertaking to see how the pervasive presence of ADD is changing today's world - for its betterment, for its detriment - but it's hard not to see it as a significant step backward for mankind.


2 comments:

  1. "Attention span" isn't the same thing as ADD. Our kiddo is the most profound case of non-hyperactive ADHD his doc at Heartspring has ever seen, but he's tackled lengthier books than Dickens. I think, as the article claims, it's more a tendency toward feeding kids bite-sized bits of story exclusively. We starting reading him chapter books before bedtime when he was pretty young, and I think that makes a difference.

    There's also a cultural issue that may be even more significant... kiddo had trouble with LOTR because the pacing is slower than a more modern book. It takes some getting used to. Dickens would tend to be the same way, though I don't think he's read any of that. But kids aren't as exposed to classic lit as they once were, so they don't really know how to read it. Pacing is different, language is different, and the historical setting is wholly alien. Those are pretty big obstacles to getting a kid engaged enough even if they *have* routinely read longer works.

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  2. Fair enough, Karen. I should have made it clearer that I'm referring to much shorter attention spans rather than the medical diagnosis of ADD.

    But I think the point in the BBC piece is still valid. I see it in how commercials, movies, television shows are shot. Faster, faster, faster. No image on air for more than two seconds, and the majority on for a half-second or less. Hyper, hyper, hyper. Which to me creates a "attention deficit disorder" that may not meet the medical criteria but still exists.

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