Thursday, June 1, 2017

Reading is Becoming A Lost form of Entertainment

There's been a debate going on about this at our High School. This week I am going to elaborate on it a bit. The last book I read personally cover to cover that was not my own Novel was Fahrenheit 451. It is about a dystopian future where the books had become lost, ironically enough. Society had lost the taste for books and as a result, it pretty much destroyed itself. Now granted there also was an overbearing government banning the books as well but even so the books were lost. While this read was mostly for the enjoyment I also needed to read it for school. Unfortunately, I think that many of today’s advancements in technology are eating up the market of young readers. While there are still many avid young readers still out there, reading a book as a form of entertainment isn’t as popular as it used to be.

My mission this week was to find out why reading was becoming a lost form of fun for young readers. For many high school students life is full with a part time job and the struggle to balance school work. Many feel that they do not have the time necessary to devote to a book. I myself relate to this attitude a lot. Some studies have shone that teens today are actually reading more words in a volume of text than in the past due to our mobile devices. However, we are reading fragments of stories. Short text messages in improper grammar because we are in too much of a hurry to type it all out. The decline in teens reading for fun is concerning, especially as I try to market my E-book.

When you really think about it, we read something every day. A message from a buddy, a Facebook post, an article online, a magazine, a menu. There’s a lot of information at our fingertips. On the other hand, longer books and stories are missing from the internet. They are the missing void only a library or a kindle subscription can fix. Written expression is falling short because the readers are disappearing. Putting together a research project is now done online, I haven't been to a library for a research paper since my 8th grade year. That being said, I think an online digitized library could become quite the rage among young adult fiction readers. If it was very easy to get to from our mobile devices I think we would be inclined to read more.

That being the case these days, it’s the business model my own website follows. Most teens I know around me are even more inclined to get into an audiobook than an E-book. An audiobook can come with you on your phone for a run, in the car, or on a bus ride. While reading is good, a lot of us don’t have that kind of time anymore. Podcasts are starting to surpass blogging in popularity now for the same reasons. I may start to do more podcasting in the future due to the growing trend for authors.
So, Is Reading really becoming a lost form of Entertainment if we are listening to the same information? Yes, listening alone to a book is different in the brain than the physical act of turning pages of a book and following along with the audio. I find that when I have only listened to an audiobook my mind has a higher chance to wander.

In conclusion, I do believe reading is becoming a lost form of entertainment among teens and young adults, the effects of it could be potentially catastrophically dramatic. The good news is that we still have our books so celebrate it and go read a book today!