Have you ever found yourself reading a novel or other literary item of your choosing, and suddenly you started dozing off?  This may seem like a natural occurrence based on the diminished levels of stimuli in your environment, but it isn’t.  This is a sign from one’s body that what you’re doing is wrong.  The mind is meant to be bombarded with constantly shifting camera angles, witty banter, and not-so-subtle laugh tracks (how else will we know when something’s funny?).  Without even a single colorful picture to occupy our attention, we find our minds drifting away from the looming wall of words confronting us, which seems to be constantly taunting, “Go ahead, try to read me all the way through.  You won’t make it past the preface.”

I’m not here to summarily dismiss the merit provided by these “books,” as I’ve been told they’re called by sources close to the matter.  It’s my understanding that many of these items contain helpful information, and they can even become a sort of supplementary learning tool.  I personally find it hard to believe that anyone would enjoy sitting in a chair staring at a square for hours on end, flipping page to page with the help of a saliva-wetted thumb and forefinger.  In my experience, watching television is a much more productive and entertaining use of time.  Now, I know what you may be thinking—isn’t watching television still just sitting in a chair and staring at a square?  But I advise you to stop thinking that, because you’re making yourself look foolish.  Televisions have been rectangular in nature for years now.  If your nose wasn’t stuck so firmly between the bindings of your latest novel, you would know that.

Studies show that teenagers today are watching more television than their literary predecessors, and in the same vein, they’re reading fewer books than ever before.  Back when teens had nothing else to do besides pick up a boring old book, they sought entertainment and vivacity through more dangerous means.  Adolescents of years past were notorious for their mischievous ways, constantly toilet papering houses, egging those same houses (at least they had some toilet paper nearby to clean up with), and their most malicious crime of all, ringing the doorbells of people they had no interest in addressing at that particular time, then fleeing swiftly.  Fast-forward to 2016, however, and the scene is set quite a bit differently.  No longer are teens gallivanting around town wreaking havoc.  They’re all too enthralled with the newest season of “Orange is the New Black.”  These kids hardly have the ability to feed themselves or use the bathroom between automatically-rolling episodes, much less cause harm or inconvenience to others. 

Some might argue that it’s important for children to be educated, and that books and various other sources of reading material are excellent inroads towards acquiring a vast and complex view of the human condition while simultaneously expanding one’s base of knowledge.  However, according to a study conducted by the organization We Need Some Assistance Here, 100% of parents with teenagers wearily agreed that at this time, they plan to settle for the technological zombification of their not-so-little bundles of joy.