And thus I have a genuine question to other people here. How common it was for students to actually read a textbook, cover to cover? I did my CS undergrad in Poland - and talking to my peers, I don't think a single of us ever did that. We used lecture slides at best and online resources for code.
But that was pre-internet.
I must say, that was a very structured, well laid out way to learn. I mean that as opposed to Googling for each subtopic, reading dozens of webpages on that single subtopic, hoping to find accurate info.
For undergrad, I would always read the 'assigned material' (essays, literature, etc.) but only recall opening one or two textbooks.
This was 18 years at a massive public university, which by design drew students from all backgrounds.
I'm inherently skeptical of "kids these days" arguments, but it really seems like the smartphones and the way we approached the pandemic was incredibly destructive.
Definitely not important, it mainly reflects on how are teachers choosing to disseminate their knowledge.