I couldn't agree with you more, I'm in highschool and I'm amazed at how often in English class while reading out loud to the class 15 and 16 year old's stumble over relatively simple words, and grammer is getting worse and worse, especially in the on-line culture of teen's where people mangle the English language into something someone from 20 years ago could barely understand.
As to the prevalence of TV and video games I used to watch hours of them from ages 5-9 at which point my reading skills progressed enough to where I'd rather read a novel than sit in front of the boob toob, but even in my football locker room filled with athletic kids all the talk is about what shows were on last night and the latest video games, they VERY rarely go out of the house except for school work or sports, it's a sad state of affairs
