12/09/2025
#๐๐ข๐จ๐๐ญ๐๐ง๐๐ | ๐๐จ๐จ ๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐จ๐ข๐๐๐ฌ, ๐ญ๐จ๐จ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐ฅ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ ๐ก๐ญ
Everyone is suddenly a โthought leaderโ online, until you realize most of those โthoughtsโ vanish as quickly as the trend that carried them. Students are louder than ever in digital spaces, yet quieter than ever where it matters: in sustained, critical thought. The decline of student reading habits has produced a generation that is present online but absent in thought, ultimately weakening public discourse and critical thinking.
Students mistake visibility for value. Social media has made it effortless to appear โengagedโโa hashtag here, a story share there. An outraged reaction to the issue of the week follows. But when these same students are asked to show up in forums, join campaigns, or even cast a vote in campus elections, participation drops. Surveys of Philippine youth point to the gap, showing how digital activism is dominated by likes and reposts, gestures that feel satisfying but lack depth. Even students themselves admit that these clicks are shallow compared to the harder work of studying issues, and defending arguments. This creates a culture of reaction instead of reflection, leaving behind a chorus of noise with little thought beneath it.
Without reading, there is no thinking. Yet students today build entire arguments out of captions. Just last year, the PISA assessment placed Filipino students among the lowest in reading comprehension worldwide, confirming what we have long sensed. But we donโt even need an international ranking to see it. Students scroll instead of opening books, quote summaries instead of grappling with full arguments. The result is shallow opinions recycled online with little evidence or context. Contributions often follow what is trending, not what is true. Until we relearn how to read deeply, our so-called โparticipationโ will remain performative at best.
In our hunger for bite-sized content, weโve made ourselves soft targets for disinformation. Surveys on reading confirm that students now prefer snippets, captions, and infographics over any text that demands patience. The danger is that context disappears, and complex issues collapse into one-liners. The recent viral fake DILG memo on class suspensions proves the point. An image polished well enough to look official spread like wildfire, instantly believed by many who never read beyond the graphic. This is what poor reading habits produceโ the inability to verify and question. Students are not just consumers of this content; research shows they are among the fastest to share it, even when itโs false. From election myths recycled on TikTok to infographics dressed up as fact, what passes as โengagementโ is often just the amplification of half-truths.
Critics will say students are already thinking critically online. Scroll through the comments and you see debates, threads dissecting issues, and infographics that claim to be โeducational.โ But a thread is not a thesis. A repost is not research. These debates burn out as quickly as the trends they follow. They leave no real framework for understanding. What is missing is the harder work of sustained reading and critical thinkingโ work that does not vanish when the feed refreshes. Without that, online โcritical engagementโ is just performance.
What matters is not more reactors but more thinkers. The noise online passes for discourse, but it will never build the understanding needed for real change. If students want their voices to matter, they must return to readingโ not skimming, not scrolling, but the slow, demanding, critical kind that sharpens the mind. Start with books, wrestle with journals, and train your mind by crafting essays on your own. We must build the discipline of thought that no algorithm can replace. Only then our words can cut through noise and shape something that lasts.
(Opinion by Fiumme Navarro; Graphics by Thereze Celestial/ The Pioneer)
