Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson and The Olympians. All of these were wildly popular book series’ with the majority of readers being children and young adults. It seemed like someone was talking about them wherever you went. On the train, walking down the street, sitting in a cafe, you would inevitably see SOMEONE with one of the books in their hands. So… what happened? Where did the buzz go? The excitement? Is it that authors aren’t coming out with any more good series? Or is it that the youth today isn’t interested in reading a plain old paperback book?
Teenagers in today’s society rely vastly on technology to entertain themselves. They cure boredom by watching their favorite YouTubers, playing video games, and scrolling through social media. Technology is great, but it seems that books have fallen out of interest with this generation completely. Why read a book if there's a movie adaption coming out, right? Maybe it's just that no one has time anymore to sit down and read with everything going on in the world. Maybe books are too expensive. Maybe no kids want to read any more than they’re required to in school. Maybe TV or social media is just easier. Or, that books aren’t being given the proper attention in the media.
Below is a graph of the amount of time spent doing activities in teens ages 13-17.
According to a study by Pew Research Center in 2018, 45% US of teens say they are online almost constantly, as opposed to 24% in 2014-2015. The data shows that the percentages have close to doubled in a span of 3-4 years. That is a lot of young teens scrolling social media and watching videos instead of reading a book or magazine. Research published by the American Psychological Association shows that, in recent years, less than 20 percent of U.S. teens report reading a book, magazine or newspaper daily for pleasure, while more than 80 percent say they use social media every day.
Below is an interview with Andrew Berenfeld, a freshman English teacher at South Mecklenburg high school. These are his personal views about this generation’s relationship with reading, and the the influence literature has had on his life.
Q1. What is your opinion on this generation's relationship with reading?
“I think that this generation reads a lot, I really do. And I know it’s kind of a fake answer because kids are reading, not necessarily full novels, but once you know how to read you can't tell your mind to stop reading. You’ll pass a billboard in a car, and you’ll read the whole thing without meaning to. So when kids are on their phones, or kids are online, or kids are doing anything, there’s a lot of reading going on. There’s a lot of comprehension.”
Q2. How has literature influenced your life personally?
“I like it it and I made it my profession! Literature has always been the most exciting of academic pursuits. It is the closest to art in the sense that it can be just about anything. And the study, to me, is so universal. You can relate literature to anything that is going on in the world. And I love the perspective you can get from it.”
Q3. What is school’s role in how teenagers today view reading?
“I think that, if I’m being super honest, it’s not just CMS but it’s most schools in general they never develop a literature appreciation. They don't develop a sense of appreciation, they just throw books at you. Now, Shakespeare is amazing. I love Shakespeare. But I learned how to do Shakespeare both through theater and through English classes. And so, Shakespeare is really cool if you like theatre, you like the performance element, and you can understand the jokes and the language, but most kids don’t get that right off the bat. They’re just thrown Romeo and Juliet their freshman year and they have to trudge through it.”
Q4. What do you wish teenagers knew about the world of books, even poetry?
“That there is literally something out there for everyone. There are thick books made for people who hate reading. Literally anything you like or care about has been made into 500 different types of literature.”
Q5. What is your view on using reading as an escape from reality?
“I think that that’s a possibility, you have to find the right thing. I feel like I have truly embodied the phrase “getting lost in a book.” There have been times where I have been reading in a coffee shop, or on a train, or in New York on the subway, or just reading in places and hours would go by. I would miss my stop, they’d be like “Hey we’re closing the coffee shop,” and I love that. I have wasted so much time just enjoying the hell out of a good book. You can definitely use it as an escape from reality.”
Many teachers want to make their kids read, and a lot of kids don’t believe that they don’t have to sit around and read a book to actually read. maybe they don't have enough time to with everything else they are doing, and this creates a cycle of not reading. What has to be understood is, not only do students and youth in general have a lack of time, they have a lack of motivation. Reading is a wonderful thing that is incorporated in everything, not necessarily a book. If youth were to be motivated to read, they would enjoy the large collection of literature offered today.