Over at the Washington Post there's an interesting article about the differences between the preferred reading material of the current generation as opposed to the more politically active generations of past college campuses. According to Ron Charles, the author of the piece:
Here we have a generation of young adults away from home for the first time, free to enjoy the most experimental period of their lives, yet they're choosing books like 13-year-old girls -- or their parents. The only specter haunting the groves of American academe seems to be suburban contentment.
He cites as evidence the fact that the majority of books sold on college campuses are
about hunky vampires or Barack Obama.
I'm not sure how much I agree with his argument. Sure, college kids like to read lighter fare, but that doesn't mean that their appreciation for literature which questions the norms of society and puts forth uncomfortable ideas has disappeared (indeed, I would say that the increased popularity of YA lit as a genre says exactly the opposite). What do you guys think? Are we abandoning On the Road and Anais Nin for Twilight? And if so, what does that mean?
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