BOOKS

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Laurie Kilmartin is an American comedian and writer who is a single mother with a son born in 2006.

In a recent stand up gig on The Late Late Show with James Corden she spoke about children today losing the ability to use books. A transcript follows, see the actual clip at:

https://twitter.com/latelateshow/status/1459046253224869891

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Laurie Kilmartin:

I am a strict Mom, I don’t let my son have a smart phone, obviously for porn . . but also, kids don’t know how to use reference books. They just google stuff and I think that’s really bade for their brains, you know. I was raised on encyclopedias, anyone else?

(Applause and cheering).

Yeah, that’s right.

Here’s my point.

I still have all my childhood encyclopedias for nostalgia purposes, so I took my son to the storage unit and I said “If you can use these books to tell me who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain in World War 2, I will get you a brand new $1,200 iPhone right now.” And he goes right to the W encyclopedia and I was like oh no, I’ve underestimated him, he’s gonna look up World War 2. But instead he tried to look up “Who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain . . . “

(Applause and cheering).

What an incredible victory for me. I’m still high off of it.

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Some thoughts:

• Who would not prefer a google check to looking into an aged set of encyclopedias?

• We still have a set of Brittanica obtained when my daughter was a baby. for her future use. It has never been used except sometimes by me early on.

• I prefer paper books to electronic.

• I use only a paper diary.

• Handwriting, I have been told, is also a disappearing skill.

• Likewise the ability to carry out maths.

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