The Reading Culture Has Gone From Bad To Worse - Literature -

When I remember the popularity of reading novels, plays and collections of poems in the 1970s, 80s and 90s and how the appreciation of reading culture boosted the intellectual skills of Nigerian children, youths and elders in those decades, I wonder why the present generation of Nigerian children and youths don't appreciate literature. Don't jump to the conclusions of blaming the emergence and popularity of social media and GSM phones, because they have not stopped the popularity of literature in America, Europe and Asia where novels are still selling millions of copies and authors are still competing for The New York Times Bestsellers List. But in Nigeria, the children and youths are intellectually clueless and the poor reading culture has gone from bad to worse. Even the students don't want to read their text books again. The terrible consequences of their intellectual underdevelopment are manifesting in the uncivilized behaviour of Nigerian children and youths. The students at the universities and the secondary school pupils are not different in speaking and behaviour as can be seen from their writings. The essays of senior secondary school pupils read like essays we wrote in primary schools in the 1970s. You see graduates with very poor intellectual comprehension at job interviews. The tragedy of it all is they are not even aware of their predicament. The degeneration of reading culture in Nigeria is affecting the appreciation of life, because majority of Nigerians are now misbehaving like uneducated people. They are going to schools in legions, but graduating without being educated. As we can see that even though Nigerians are the largest population of users of GSM phones and internet in Africa, even the best Nigerian universities are not among the top 10 in Africa. 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.