reading is in trouble today. Americans, particularly young Americans, limit themselves to information -- "data," in the cliche -- collected on a computer screen and in tiny letters on a cell phone. This holds serious risks. Digital information replaces knowledge, opinion is confused with fact, and wisdom is lost in a whirlwind of words, words, words -- many misused, others without substance.
Veritas goes unverified when the source is Wikipedia, the encyclopedia on the Internet that employs no fact-checkers. Keeping their students from plagiarizing from the Internet, complain university professors, is like trying to prevent a stampede with a wooden fence.
In one study of what 17-year-olds know of history and literature, the surveyors found mostly ignorance.
an education scholar who conducted the interviews, found that fewer than half could identify Job in the Old Testament or Oedipus in the plays by Sophocles.
Many had never heard of the novel "1984" or knew the meaning of "Orwellian."
clipped from: www.townhall.com