yorex2011:
As for me, technology has greatly increased my productivity, i bought my tablet mainly for reading and i have hundreds of books ranging from psychology to medicine to philosophy and economics, engineering (all aspects), and self help books such as the secret language of leadership.... meanwhile i am a graduate of Engineering.. And truth is i am not really a fan of novels.. The tablet has done soo much for me, i learnt web design on it, coding java, c, even android development on it, i increased my reading speed via a speed reading software to about 600wpm @80% comprehension..many things i also knw got them from youtube... So technology or social media might not necessarily be the cause, still boils down to the attitude of the youth

Please i need the reading efficiency software.

Nitefury:


Used to think I was the only person who get pissed off when I see such abbreviated sentences and words. For crying out loud, if you want to write in English, write/spell correctly or write in pidgin where abbreviations are allowed and there're no correct writing patterns. Beside Text messaging and Twitter where one's writing is limited to 150 characters, comments on social media should be done using properly typed English words. Even when chatting on Whatsapp.

For the topic, I'll table a huge chunk of the blame on parents. Growing up, my parent had a habit of returning home from work with a newspaper/magazine. Mother would call I and my elder brother to come take a copy and read for about an hour. When we return from the "reading room", she'll begin to question us on major headlines and what we understood from the articles. I became a fan of Tell magazine this way. This went on till I left home for the boarding house. I wonder how many homes even have reading rooms today.

Another thing my parent did then was the daily bible readings we practiced during morning devotions. When its your turn, you would read and share your understanding of the day's bible readings with the rest of the family. So it wasn't just reading alone, we were expected to be able to understand and share what we read.

Social media unfortunately has contributed to a decline in our reading, speaking and spelling culture also. It's easier to say or write "coz" than it is to say "Because"

What exactly is wrong with the bolded?
So you believe you are more intelligent and superior just because you type in full?
I write like that and i can still write in correct grammar when its needed.
It's just a way of saving time or energy punching less stuff on your keypad.
Quick question, when your lecturer is dictating notes in class,do you write out everything in full?
If NO, do you use the same shorthands in your exam?
You guys should concentrate more on people using wrong tenses and spellings.
A lot of the "superior" whites have trouble with "their" and "there" , "your" and "you're". <<Sagamite , Joseph1013 take note.

NB. I wrote in Full incase you have troubles understanding shorthand. Lol

Realisticman:

Hahaha! I just corrected my self by writing 'Okay' after initially writing 'Ok'. Certainly correction by most of the electronic media we use these days have also contributed on the poor spelling we experience. Honestly we need an overhaul. Good post by the Op! What is even the full meaning of Op?

Original Poster

forjamb:
Seems every comment only adds to identifying the problem without proffering a solution. I think Nigerians should do away with wailing out our problems and start thinking of a way/ways out.

You are right. Methinks the solution is quite simple. Get folks like Davido, Wizkid, Olamide, et al to start reading!

Since these guys are like the gods, the idols, that most of these youths are looking up to as well as imitating, it won't be so difficult then to get these youths to tow that line.

Imagine wizkid tweeting about the latest book he just finished reading and inviting his fans to discuss the characters in the book! Imagine Davido starting a competition about who will give the best summary of a novel of his choice! Just imagine Olamide writing a book himself!

OMG!

oyeezah:
you read my mind...plenty hugs to you

even the mediocre movies nollywood is churning out is not helping matters at all .The way they downplay and, ridicule scholars and make them look weird in movies is not helping matters at all.

They make it look like scholars are poor hungry and frustrated people who are only obsessed with sleeping with students. All PhD and masters graduates are jobless who work for illiterates and semi illiterates because they are "over educated"

Freemanan:
TOO LONG...




CAN'T READ

Sweet Lawd

when he's busy organizing concerts or trying to shoot his music video he will have time to read a novel. People like him will say how much profit is in Reading.

In fact there's a line in one of psquares songs that says I'm counting millions, you're counting books and speaking grammar or something of sort.the idea was that he was trying to ridicule those reading

2scorehigh:


You are right. Methinks the solution is quite simple. Get folks like Davido, Wizkid, Olamide, et al to start reading!

Since these guys are like the gods, the idols, that most of these youths are looking up to as well as imitating, it won't be so difficult then to get these youths to tow that line.

Imagine wizkid tweeting about the latest book he just finished reading and inviting his fans to discuss the characters in the book! Imagine Davido starting a competition about who will give the best summary of a novel of his choice! Just imagine Olamide writing a book himself!

OMG!

he's just a perfect example

honestly this generation is lost

milychocs:



Sweet Lawd

SAMBARRY:
even the mediocre movies nollywood is churning out is not helping matters at all .The way they downplay and, ridicule scholars and make them look weird in movies is not helping matters at all.

They make it look like scholars are poor hungry and frustrated people who are only obsessed with sleeping with students. All PhD and masters graduates are jobless who work for illiterates and semi illiterates because they are "over educated"

they have succeeded in making some people think that your education or certificates is not important

Olarewajub:
Please i need the reading efficiency software.

Check my profile..

An2elect2:


The men are not better....most of them are dumb as f.uck.

Am not disputing that! But among our educated young ladies, intelligent discussions are often a no-no! Educated men discuss intelligently most times! Visit my thread below:

www.nairaland.com/most-nigerian-ladies-are-scared-of-intelligent-discussions

oyeezah:
they have succeeded in making some people think that your education or certificates is not important

exactly meanwhile in developed societies movies are an instrument of enlightenment or encouraging learning. Look at the movie akeelah and the bee.

I remember those days when we were kids we were so eager to watch speak out on nta.a debate programme on tv to help teens sharpen their debate skills and their intelligence but look at the thrash all over the tv.things of value that should educate and entertain kids and teens are no longer shown instead its aki and paw paw teaching kids how to steal another person's farm products and other nonsense.

Meanwhile its only few of this nollywood movie makers that are educated especially in the yoruba genre. A large number of them are illiterates and semi illiterates yet we expose children to learn from illiterates via nollywood home video

Porthable:
Personally I'm of the opinion that you are wrong. Saying our generation doesn't read anymore is just a statement made out of baseless facts. That we have decided to do things differently doesn't mean we are doing nothing. Before novels it was pure verbal communication hence they told stories. Now because you don't see me hold paper novels doesn't mean I don't have an 11 gig of novels on my phone. I don't buy news papers but once click ngfeeds.com and nairaland I know I'm gonna get the news.

I concur with you because I read a lot of books(literatures and textbooks) and I download most of them from the internet. I'm a student and I buy texbooks sold by my lecturers because it is a must but I still download textbooks from the internet because it is cheaper for me. I would be stupid to use my monthly subscription for chatting alone.

SAMBARRY:

when he's busy organizing concerts or trying to shoot his music video he will have time to read a novel. People like him will say how much profit is in Reading.

In fact there's a line in one of psquares songs that says I'm counting millions, you're counting books and speaking grammar or something of sort.the idea was that he was trying to ridicule those reading

Is he organizing concerts 24/7? Don't they relax at all? The way I see it, having no time to read is always a lame excuse. It's not like you are going to take the whole day.

If you want to revamp the reading culture in our society, I believe I have pointed you to the right direction.

PSquare is counting millions; now these youths want to start counting millions. In the same vein, if peradventure, PSquare should start counting the books they've read, I believe we will see that change we desire.

yorex2011:
As for me, technology has greatly increased my productivity, i bought my tablet mainly for reading and i have hundreds of books ranging from psychology to medicine to philosophy and economics, engineering (all aspects), and self help books such as the secret language of leadership.... meanwhile i am a graduate of Engineering.. And truth is i am not really a fan of novels.. The tablet has done soo much for me, i learnt web design on it, coding java, c, even android development on it, i increased my reading speed via a speed reading software to about 600wpm @80% comprehension..many things i also knw got them from youtube... So technology or social media might not necessarily be the cause, still boils down to the attitude of the youth

yorex2011 am really impress by what you are doing with your tablet,am also an engineering student,not yet a graduate.please I don't mind if you can coach me on how you make good use of you tablet doing such things you mention.thanks

Idrismusty97:
And novels and literature will solve the problem? How about motivational books? I will pick a newspaper over a novel anytime, any day! The older generation place too much importance on these literatures. There are many other ways of learning, Even the so called TV and GSM the older generation have condemn so much are better suited for learning than novels. A simple scrolling through Nairaland or watching top international news station, Documentaries etc would benefit the youth greatly. We are in a capitalists system, Economics/Entrepreneurship is the way! Not fantasy, Eze goes to school stuff blah blah. I will suggest motivational books, how to survive in this wicked capitalist system to my kids than one fantasy novel. Both those that read all day and those that doesn't still end up in the Labour market or worse unemployed.... You need something more to be exceptional and that "Thing" isn't in novels and Shakespeare's poems.

GBAM!!!

ajsans:
yorex2011 am really impress by what you are doing with your tablet,am also an engineering student,not yet a graduate.please I don't mind if you can coach me on how you make good use of you tablet doing such things you mention.thanks

No problem.. Create a thread and mention me

2scorehigh:


You are right. Methinks the solution is quite simple. Get folks like Davido, Wizkid, Olamide, et al to start reading!

Since these guys are like the gods, the idols, that most of these youths are looking up to as well as imitating, it won't be so difficult then to get these youths to tow that line.

Imagine wizkid tweeting about the latest book he just finished reading and inviting his fans to discuss the characters in the book! Imagine Davido starting a competition about who will give the best summary of a novel of his choice! Just imagine Olamide writing a book himself!

OMG!

Cant wait to see that day come o.

The only way of relaxation is sex and clubbing.

I'm giving you a run down of reality. They don't care about all you are saying

2scorehigh:


Is he organizing concerts 24/7? Don't they relax at all? The way I see it, having no time to read is always a lame excuse. It's not like you are going to take the whole day.

If you want to revamp the reading culture in our society, I believe I have pointed you to the right direction.

PSquare is counting millions; now these youths want to start counting millions. In the same vein, if peradventure, PSquare should start counting the books they've read, I believe we will see that change we desire.

Well it's obvious that the reading culture it's almost extinct.....but the BIG question I always ask is this.... WHAT'S THE WAY FORWARD?
How can the educational sector and individuals in education revert this trend?
Because a nation with no readers has no future leaders....we need to act fast and quick about it..
It's pathetic to say the least.

Today its people having sex and fighting over boyfriend that is shown on tv yet parents allow under aged kids watching xrated movies with them

Kingsasian:
Op, you are right. My younger sister and I had a discussion on this same topic some days ago. Gone are those days when we use to boast of the number of books we have read and when I say books I meant novels both indigenous and foreign. I could still remember my primary school days how I use to devour any novel that comes my way. My siblings and I will be reading a particular novel with each of us holding the different pages or leaves we are on to. In my primary school days we spend most of our break periods in the library and we borrowed those litterature texts we couldn't finish before the end of break. I still believe that use of GSM and social media has greatly affected our nowadays kids.

dfrost:


@ Kingsasian

I concur with your points. I had the same upbringing. Back in those days, we literally "devoured" books like there was no tomorrow. Hardley Chase, Shakespeare, Mills and Boon (for the female folk though) to Where There Is No Doctor. Up till now I read a lot. My parents started off by encouraging us to read any sign we see on the road (ranging from signposts to notices).

It really bleeds my heart because you hardly find any young person to engage in a meaningful conversation.

On a larger part, modern parents are to blame. They practically have no time for their wards. They don't set boundaries for their children. All has been let loose. They should set a limit on what they watch, time they spend on the Internet and also apply a curfew.

How many parents have time to go through their ward's exercise books? 10%, 20%, 30%... 99.99%?

It's really disheartening to say the least. Go to the Politics Section of NL and you will see how custodians of our generation (elderly ones) exchange insults with one another and with custodians of the next generation (younger ones) without proper diction. The shortening of words has eaten into fabrics of our system to the extent that even some graduates looking for employment use them.

Social media only adds to the smaller percentage of the problem.

My humble submission. Shalom.

@
dearpreye
VickyRotex

Your attention is needed here please. Food is ready

Good Morning dfrost!

Thanks for the mention

@bolded, you nailed it. That's one of the major cause of what we're experiencing right now.

Parents no longer lead by example.

Some Parents no longer have time to train their wards. All they crave for now is money, how to beat their colleagues in social status et al.

Most Parents don't even read, so how do you expect such parents to imbibe the reading pattern in their kids?

Now, most Parents believe whatever their child is taught in school will do, without going extra mile.

I'm so grateful to my parents, who imbibed values in us.

They shared it. My mum handled Spelling and dictation. You return from school, rest your head, and off you go with her in the kitchen, spelling atleast 5 new words per day. Else, you know na


(Talk of Akeelah and the Bee movie, it was also a great motivation then. Seeing such a young girl with vibrant passion for spelling).


My dad, handled reading and understanding. You read Novels, Newspapers (He loves that so much), Academic books (especially Comprehension passages).
You just have to read, digest and understand, because you have to explain exactly what you read or summarize.

The annoying thing then was, you cant lie to my dad about what you read, because even before you read it, he has already done that. He practically lead by example.


He had this popular slang then. Whenever we're going to school, he'd say "Kawe e ooo" (Read ooo) It was so annoying, especially when he had to say it in the presence of my school mates. You know that feeling

Oh then, I thought we were been purnished, but whenever I look back, I see its all fruitful now.

My dad never told us to do things verbally, you just have to write, and when you write, it has to be in good English.


I personally imbibed his passion for reading books. I'm still learning and improving day by day. I'm not even near perfect, but I'm quite sure, I'm not where I used to be.

What am I saying? Parents are the fundamental causes of this lack of reading pattern in our youths. Coupled with what the society has become. And the reason is not far fetched. ""The family is the corner stone of the society""

There are other reasons for the present day degredation in reading, but I feel it's much better to address the root cause.

I'll end with this:

"The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture. It is a perpetual source of encouragement, advocacy, assurance, and emotional refueling that empowers a child to venture with confidence into the greater world and to become all that he can be".
-MARIANNE E. NEIFERT


dearpreye, great contribution you have there. Quest for material things has taken away the reading culture from our youths.

The so called "Role Models" most youths attach themselves to, aint helping at all.

ElPhenomenal:

And reading Hardley Chase or Shakespeare will give you those knowledge? the internet is the solution to all these

They gave you hadley chase or shakespeare as example of material for those generation. You are to find more relevant material to enrich your thinking mind.

The fact is that you can also learn many things from multiple media e.g films, pictures, certain types of music etc. But you cannot learn to think except through reading. Because thinking is done with ideas, language and words, if you dont have a command of language your ability to mentally process your ideas, analyse issues and express yourself will be a stake. And if you can't think and organize your thoughts how can you write what others can comprehend?

It is this poverty of thought that leads to the manifestation of insults in chat rooms. When a party spouts out a position that they have not thought through properly, they are unable to defend it with facts and logic, and instead resort to insults out of frustration.

The world of the internet and multimedia has inadvertently created an opportunity for the african to 'catch up' with the rest of the world in terms of ideas, knowledge and technology. Every aspect of the multimedia internet - documents for reading, youtube videos, music, news stations, documentaries etc - should be embraced by the youth.

Orikinla:
And when a Nigerian girl will text to thank me, she will type "fenks" and she is a student of Mass Communication at the university.

Lmao!!!

2scorehigh:


You are right. Methinks the solution is quite simple. Get folks like Davido, Wizkid, Olamide, et al to start reading!

Since these guys are like the gods, the idols, that most of these youths are looking up to as well as imitating, it won't be so difficult then to get these youths to tow that line.

Imagine wizkid tweeting about the latest book he just finished reading and inviting his fans to discuss the characters in the book! Imagine Davido starting a competition about who will give the best summary of a novel of his choice! Just imagine Olamide writing a book himself!

OMG!

Great!!!

Honestly, You nailed it!

But, me think it's far from reality! Atleast, for now.

Who will take the bull by the horn?

VickyRotex:


Good Morning dfrost!

Thanks for the mention

@bolded, you nailed it. That's one of the major cause of what we're experiencing right now.

Parents no longer lead by example.

Some Parents no longer have time to train their wards. All they crave for now is money, how to beat their colleagues in social status et al.

Most Parents don't even read, so how do you expect such parents to imbibe the reading pattern in their kids?

Now, most Parents believe whatever their child is taught in school will do, without going extra mile.

I'm so grateful to my parents, who imbibed values in us.

They shared it. My mum handled Spelling and dictation. You return from school, rest your head, and off you go with her in the kitchen, spelling atleast 5 new words per day. Else, you know na


(Talk of Akeelah and the Bee movie, it was also a great motivation then. Seeing such a young girl with vibrant passion for spelling).


My dad, handled reading and understanding. You read Novels, Newspapers (He loves that so much), Academic books (especially Comprehension passages).
You just have to read, digest and understand, because you have to explain exactly what you read or summarize.

The annoying thing then was, you cant lie to my dad about what you read, because even before you read it, he has already done that. He practically lead by example.


He had this popular slang then. Whenever we're going to school, he'd say "Kawe e ooo" (Read ooo) It was so annoying, especially when he had to say it in the presence of my school mates. You know that feeling

Oh then, I thought we were been purnished, but whenever I look back, I see its all fruitful now.

My dad never told us to do things verbally, you just have to write, and when you write, it has to be in good English.


I personally imbibed his passion for reading books. I'm still learning and improving day by day. I'm not even near perfect, but I'm quite sure, I'm not where I used to be.

What am I saying? Parents are the fundamental causes of this lack of reading pattern in our youths. Coupled with what the society has become. And the reason is not far fetched. ""The family is the corner stone of the society""

There are other reasons for the present day degredation in reading, but I feel it's much better to address the root cause.

I'll end with this:

"The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture. It is a perpetual source of encouragement, advocacy, assurance, and emotional refueling that empowers a child to venture with confidence into the greater world and to become all that he can be".
-MARIANNE E. NEIFERT


dearpreye, great contribution you have there. Quest for material things has taken away the reading culture from our youths.

The so called "Role Models" most youths attach themselves to, aint helping at all.

Correct!

Thank you Nairaland Administrators and moderators for making this a front page topic.
And thank you for adding paragraphs, because the mobile phone I was using did not allow me to do that.

As someone rightly commented, technology should boost our reading culture as it is doing in the US, UK, Asia and even in South Africa.
We can read books on smartphones and tablets.
There are eBooks selling millions of downloads on Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook and others and many have made The New York Times Bestsellers List for eBooks.
Many of the eBooks and also audio books are free. But Nigerian children and youths are not using their access to the internet on smartphones and tablets to read or listen to audio books.
They use them to chat and gossip and view porn.

As another person pointed out, younger parents in Nigeria who are even graduates don't read and so don't encourage their children to read. They prefer to teach them how to dance to the latest psychedelic hip hop songs and X-rated music videos and I often overhear a mom and her 4 year old daughter singing "Dorobucci" and the little girl added her own twist to it as "Dorobody"!
The most interesting thing is another 4 year old girl I gave her parents books for her birthdays is the most brilliant among the children in the block of flats. She reads and discusses the stories. And she already knows that adult songs and videos are bad and leaves whenever the other children are dancing to Whizkid and Timaya. She knows how to use a laptop by watching her parents, a banker and a teacher using their laptops for work.

One might conclude that this is just one of the challenges(decline in reading culture) Nigeria is facing since the country is struggling economically. But does that mean we just need to wait for the government to fix all the national issues before addressing the intellectual starvation of the young minds of Nigerian people?
Having confronted of this sad reality Nigeria is facing, have reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from an award winning children’s author and illustrator - Dr. Frank Serafini – which states:

“There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book.”
-Dr. frank Serafini

I saw this challenge many years ago, so I decided I was going to do something about it. We founded an organisation called Reading foundation to encourage reading culture among the Nigeria Secondary School Students. We put in a lot of resources into the programme but the we were not getting support from either individual or organisation still, we ran it for more than 5 years channeling all our personal resources into. As you can see from the pictures attached, we pulled alot of participants (at a time we had over 5,000 student converged, we even used a stadium as a grand finale).

I will really love to continue with the project ONLY if we can get support. yemikush @gmail.com

chinnyonwu:

What exactly is wrong with the bolded?
So you believe you are more intelligent and superior just because you type in full?
I write like that and i can still write in correct grammar when its needed.
It's just a way of saving time or energy punching less stuff on your keypad.
Quick question, when your lecturer is dictating notes in class,do you write out everything in full?
If NO, do you use the same shorthands in your exam?
You guys should concentrate more on people using wrong tenses and spellings.
A lot of the "superior" whites have trouble with "their" and "there" , "your" and "you're". <<Sagamite , Joseph1013 take note.

NB. I wrote in Full incase you have troubles understanding shorthand. Lol

good one

Orikinla:

You need statistics to back up your unfounded claim. For now they seem anecdotal to me.

From my knowledge, the reading culture in Nigeria has not diminished; you can only argue that in the context of educational material of which I know a strong reason. Everything in the world changes and technology was made to ensure everything changes to better and more efficient means. However even at that, the educational system in this country has remained stale - teachers who handle multitudes of children daily during their formative years take delight in calling them "dull, olodo, dunces" while encouraging only a handful. Steady bashing of that sort would make a class of 200 pupils see themselves mostly as worthless meanwhile only the five encouraged ones keep rising to the top because they're seen as "teachers pets".

I know I always hated and felt forced to read textbooks and found them boring because they were subjects I could not relate to. Education about a subject requires constant immersion: How can you explain to someone who only calculates currency in their daily life how x and y equal to some random figure? He needs visual proof to confirm that. Reading about history today is not as appealing as reading current political topics because you can see how recent policies affect daily life meanwhile your country's history is dead, gone and forgotten.

I can go on and on but I assure you, those students you claim do not read anymore - check it; they probably consume information 10x more than contained in their textbooks but irrelevant to their school curriculum. I know all the reading I've done on this site would represent reading a full novel every four days however I'm not in school any more and even if I was it would remain irrelevant as teachers would look at me as a dull student.

SAMBARRY:
The only way of relaxation is sex and clubbing.

I'm giving you a run down of reality. They don't care about all you are saying

Hahahaaa... in that case, there's fire on the mountain!

VickyRotex:

Great!!!
Honestly, You nailed it!
But, me think it's far from reality! Atleast, for now.
Who will take the bull by the horn?

Well, lemme call Wande Coal.