At the beginning of this year when Barbara Walters announced that she would be leaving "20/20," she gave as her reason the pressure of having to appeal to young viewers.

And lately it seems that I have been seeing articles reporting that more and more young people are now getting their news from the likes of Leno, Letterman, "The Daily Show" and even "Saturday Night Live" rather than from more traditional (and reliable) sources.

Now that Tom Brokaw has announced that his last evening news broadcast will be on Dec. 1, one can only wonder if his colleagues Dan Rather and Peter Jennings will soon be following. Their serious and dignified demeanor have defined how news has been presented to an entire generation of Americans.

But in a news world where there is now so much more than just the three major networks, will the increased competition for viewers (especially young viewers) force the next generation of TV news anchors to sacrifice substance for style? Will they have to start expending more and more effort in an attempt to accommodate the likes (and dislikes) of younger and younger audiences?

Will the solemn countenances of Brokaw, Rather and Jennings be thought of as static (rather than statuesque) and give way to a style that is more casual, relaxed and informal — with a few jokes tossed in now and then to make the news "more interesting"?

Does everything exist these days only to be made "more interesting" as if boredom has replaced the likes of communism and even Satan as the No. 1 enemy that we must be constantly vigilant of? Columnist Andrea Kay's article "Boredom almost as bad as stress" (Business section, June 7) described the adverse effects of boredom on the job. As I read through it, I could not help but wonder if the employees who suffer(?) most from boredom might actually be overstimulated by a society that provides 24/7 distractions.

(And if a person's biggest problem in life is being bored with his or her job, I should have such problems.)

Concerning the current generation of young readers, David Shapiro's April 14 column "The Holy Grail of writing" reports that they enjoy graphic literature (which he described as "grossly expensive comic books") as well as "literature that aims to find truth by blending fact and fiction." I can only wonder if the reason for such popularity is because the pictures in graphic literature and the fiction in literature respectively serve to make the text and facts (what else?) "more interesting."

And with regard to education these days, considering that I am old enough to remember when teachers seemed to go out of their way to create a "fear of authority" atmosphere in the classroom, I couldn't help but be taken aback when I read the March 18 article "Teachers make trig, science fun."

Whenever I come across things like this, I simply feel like a character out of a Franz Kafka novel. I just DON'T KNOW what's hitting me.

When it comes to what life is all about, doesn't it seem as if the gratification of the appetites has become the be-all and end-all of human experience and existence?

Although we live in times when there seems to be nothing but disagreement, I think that all of us can agree that life is certainly becoming more complex.

But does the next generation indeed view the future as one which exists solely to keep them from getting bored? If an education does anything for students, isn't it to supposed to prepare them for an adulthood that will in all likelihood be even more complex — full of problems to solve, obstacles to overcome and adversities to deal with? Sometimes even sacrifices to make?

Isn't that what Leonard Pitts Jr. was trying to say in his June 25 column, "Reality is not a show on your television," when he pointed out that "reality" shows reflect a society that has let the prospect of instant celebrity blind it to more important values?

When it comes to the reality of day-to-day living, a lot of it is mundane and full of nitty-gritty details that cannot be avoided. As far as I am concerned, life is full of repetitive routines, and I wonder if young people realize that many things simply could not function unless routines were created and followed.

•	"The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs." — F. Scott Fitzgerald

I can only hope (or should I start praying?) that our future leaders and voters don't preoccupy themselves with making life "more interesting" and trying to have your cake and eat it, too, because I have noticed that once a person starts allowing himself to do that, he soon loses touch with reality and starts thinking that anything is possible.

But is that what 21st-century leaders are counting on? And will they start making vaguer-than-vague promises about a rosier-than-rosy future which will somehow just happen?

Why does the image of the Pied Piper of Hamelin suddenly come to mind?