ASPiRERS Foundation Student Feature

As a new initiative for 2023 to help youngsters fulfil their dreams, we will be featuring a number of students with creative minds on addressing important topics within the community. Boris Lo, Year 11 student from the Sevenoaks School, UK, discusses the trends about reading habits of the youngsters nowadays.

We Should Make Reading Habits Popular Again
By Boris Lo, Year 11 student from the Sevenoaks School, UK

Reading has served as a medium for knowledge transfer in humans for millennia. It allows humans to gain knowledge by comprehending a written form of human language. Knowledge has been stored by writing as far back as 3400 B.C, allowing the ceaseless knowledge transfer between humans through reading. In our modern society, reading is still an accessible and valuable method of gaining knowledge. However, the popularity of reading has declined, especially among youths. This is due to several factors.

Factors behind the decline in reading:

Social Media: Social Media has reduced our ability to focus through instant gratification. Social media provides interesting content quickly, through a multitude of media. People accustomed to this instant feeling of satisfaction suffer from reduced attention spans. This has led to people being unable to focus on more time-consuming media such as books.
Many teens suffer from short attention spans, due to spending large amounts of time on social media. This is seen from the average screen time for teens 13-18 being eight hours and 39 minutes, and surveys show that 90% of teens this age use social media. Reading books will be much less appealing compared to social media for most teens due to books’ time-consuming nature. This is why reading culture in teens has especially declined

Poverty:Teens not reading are also due to the price of books. Even with technological advancements allowing the development of e-books, and other digital forms of reading, paperback books remain imperative. Some teens prefer paperback books due to their intricate designs. Additionally, reading physical books may be less distracting than using a device such as a tablet - where you could be tempted to use other applications and stop reading, disrupting your focus.
Poverty causes teens to be unable to afford paperback books, which are directly associated with conventional reading practices. This inability to buy books is seen through the statistic that around one in five children in England between the ages of five and eight do not have access to books at home. Without having access to books at an early age, these children may not develop an interest in reading. This disinterest in reading may persist throughout their teenage years when they are typically the busiest and may prefer other activities over reading. This may lead to a lack of reading in their adulthood when they are occupied with work.

Academic association: In school, books are commonly used for education in the form of textbooks, literature, manuals etc. This association may cause students to lose interest in reading books for leisure due to it being deeply intertwined with their academic lives.

Even libraries, the place where students can find books to enjoy reading, has become associated with academics. The library has become a common study area in many schools, which has led to some students neglecting the purpose of the library, and instead seeing it as just a quiet study area. These changes will affect the student’s future reading habits and only see reading as a tool for studying, not a tool for leisure - causing the decline of leisure reading.

Distractions: With the advancement of technology, new applications such as social media platforms, video games, VR games etc, provide an immense range of stress-relieving alternatives. These applications are also designed to be highly addictive and entertaining due to their interactive nature. They are more addictive than books, which causes people to prefer using them instead of reading, leading to the decline of reading.

This issue is prevalent in current teenagers, who have grown up with the easy availability of portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, providing them with effortless ways to relieve their stress. Students who read digitally(on devices with access to the internet) may often lose concentration due to the temptations of other applications on the device, which can eventually lead to the loss of their reading habits.

How can we revitalize reading culture?

Good reading habits are invaluable to cultivate, I believe that it is most important to find a book you enjoy reading with a genuine interest. With the abundance of books in libraries, online, in bookshops etc, it can remain difficult to find the right book for you - even if you know what genre you prefer. The best way to find a perfect book is through another experienced reader who understands your tastes and knows what book is right for you.

However, finding readers who understand your preferences, and have a suitable trove of knowledge can be a burdensome task. With the declining reading culture, it is harder to find readers near your age, with whom you discuss books and both receive and give recommendations. 

If you have access to paperback books, you should read them instead of digital copies.  Paperback books are less distracting because using them can distance yourself from temptations that arise from reading electronically. By reducing the urge of succumbing to these impulses, you are building more sustainable reading habits, which will last long term. This will bring you a range of benefits - increased literacy, vocabulary and knowledge.

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With a passion to help youngsters identify their strengths and needs, the ASPiRERS aims to inspire them and consolidate their thoughts into real achievements. Want to know more? Come visit us or initial a meeting with The Aspirers.