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The purpose of education is not (as they seem to assume sometimes here in France) to stuff little heads full of "facts," but rather to teach kids the basics of learning so that they can then learn how to learn, how to problem solve and how to critique and question the sources of information they encounter. Things aren't right or wrong just because they appear in print, or on the Internet or on television. It's the ability to analyze and critically evaluate what you're told or what you read or see that seems to be missing these days - and unfortunately that's a whole bunch harder to evaluate by means of a standardized test.
You read a few classics, even those you don't like, so you have a basis of comparison to new, more modern books you run across. I hated reading The Scarlet Letter, but I appreciate the social and political issues it illustrated. How many books and broadcasters today are just "preaching to the choir" without any concern for the point of view of the other side? How "ballsy" was it of Hawthorne to present things from the point of view of an "adulteress" or the preacher who knocked her up?
No, electronic devices aren't the problem per se. I'm not the only person here to have stated that I don't want an eReader that is always connected (to the Internet or anywhere else) because I want to be able to concentrate on my reading, to think about it and NOT to be interrupted with incoming e-mail or diversions to Wikipedia to look up something I didn't entirely understand. There is plenty of garbage out there in print and online, and I like to think that I can evaluate the information I find - but evaluating what you see and read takes time and some experience and some in depth reflection. That should be what the reading section of the SAT tries to get at - and if that's the case, the falling reading scores don't particularly surprise me.
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