Smarter And Nicer

Some parents and professionals characterized the younger generation's online reading habits as more time browsing, non-linear reading, and reading more selectively, while less time is spent on in-depth reading. In "Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer", Annie Murphy Paul, a magazine journalist, argues that people who read literature are more likely to be empathetic and understanding other people's perspective. She claims that the younger generation is being cheated by their digital devices from those elements of empathizing and understanding other people's viewpoints. I disagree with Ms. Paul on the issue because of the lack of understanding within the age group of teens and children characteristics and the lack of a broader spectrum of other ages people to compare data to her claim.
The first reason why I disagreed with Ms. Paul was the lack of data understanding the age group of children and teen's characteristics by choosing a few statistical data from certain cases that favor her justification and not giving a full picture of the argument. For example, Ms. Paul cited a report done by Britain's Literacy Trust about children and teens between the ages of eight to sixteen about their reading habits. The report …show more content…
Paul's claim is the lack of a broader spectrum of other age groups to compare evidence of her claim. For example, Ms. Paul claims that young people's attachment to their digital devices is the leading cause of this deprive experience and understanding of literature. Ms. Paul's claim that young people have a problem with their attachment to digital devices which is depriving them of understanding and experiencing literature rests upon the questionable assumption that young people are the only ones being affected by it. If Ms. Paul would have included other statistics from an older age group to compare the two, it would have made her claim stronger with a broader scope of ages to justify her