The end of civilization-----University students are struggling to read entire books

University students are struggling to read entire books | Education | News | The Independent: "Students have reacted to claims from university professors that they struggle to read books from cover to cover by admitting it is true - but insisting it's because universities don't give them enough time to finish them.
University academics caused a furore this week by claiming many students found the thought of reading books all the way to the end “daunting”, due to shorter attention spans and an inability to focus on complex philosophies.
Jenny Pickerill, a professor in environmental geography at the University of Sheffield, told Times Higher Education magazine: “Students struggle with set texts, saying the language or concepts are too hard”.
"I recently had a student suggest an alternative book for a module I am teaching which they found easier to engage with.
It was a good book, but it was not really academic enough and I am still unsure if that matters or whether I should be recommending more readable books.
There is currently a disjuncture between the types of reading we want students to engage with and the types students feel able or willing to do.”
Jo Brewis, professor of organisation and consumption at Leicester University, weighed in saying "graduates and postgraduate students seem mainly not to be avid readers”.
Recommending whole books would overwhelm them, she added, and she tended not to do so."