About digital media/books, technological distractions for the youngsters and losing patience to read:

In the meantime, she worries, huge monuments of human culture threaten to disappear from consciousness. The “demise” of 19th- and early 20th-century literature is continuing, according to Wolf, who says she has been overwhelmed by mail from educators confirming her fears. “They’re all talking about how their students don’t have the patience any more,” she says.

So goodbye George Eliot, Henry James, et al.

“Syntax is a reflection of the convolution of thought,” says Wolf, who studied literature before turning to linguistics and studying under Noam Chomsky. “As we become too impatient to read complicated syntax, I wonder out loud about the capacity for handling the complexity of issues that are out there in life, with all their semicolons.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...2268465/page1/
Would you agree that more kids have less patience to read a thick book from cover to cover these days?

I think it depends if they are allowed to choose whatever and given time (is that possible) that is distraction free...

I confess that I haven't read a novel ...in over 18 months or more. I read non-fiction from cover to cover. And one of my degrees is English Lit.

And I am by formal training, career-wise have been a librarian. Not public librarian but in engineering and law. I haven't used my own library in the latest city where I live to get a book. I used to be an avid reader right into my early 30's.

I am far from being a great example at this point in life. But still would be getting nieces and nephews interested in books.