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Why Don’t We See Teens Reading As Much as We used to? By McKenzie Murphy
“It’s very likely that teenagers, attached to screens of one sort or another, read more words than they ever have in the past. But they often read scraps, excerpts, articles, parts of articles, messages, pieces of information from everywhere and from nowhere,” Denby writes.
Teens may be reading, but they’re not reading books. A vast majority of teenagers in this generation have only picked up a book once, maybe twice, and not for pleasure. A common reason adults give as to why this is, is that we are in the technological age and teens have no need to pick up a book if they have a smartphone or tablet. Technology has pulled adolescents away from books, and maybe not entirely because of e-readers.
In Why Aren’t Teens Reading Like They Used To? By Jennifer Ludden, it is said that the rate of teens reading for pleasure has declined rapidly. “Nearly half of 17-year-olds say they read for pleasure no more than one or two times a year- if that,” Ludden wrote upon looking into studies put together by a nonprofit organization. According to the article, technology is not the main cause of the rapid decline of teens reading. “The studies do not say that kids are reading less because they’re spending more time online. But Steyer is convinced that’s at least part of the answer.” Jim Steyer, CEO and founder of the nonprofit Common Sense Media, studied the impact of technology on children and found that even though technology is a factor in the decline of pleasure reading, it is not the absolute main cause. CHS ninth-grader Jamahri Sydnor stated, “I don’t really read for pleasure. Generally I talk on the phone. Or I watch Netflix shows, or Hulu shows, mostly TV. That’s it.” But is this the case for all adolescents?
David Denby’s article Do Teens Read Seriously Anymore, on the other hand, believes that technology is the WHOLE problem. “It’s very likely that teenagers, attached to screens of one sort or another, read more words than they ever have in the past. But they often read scraps, excerpts, articles, parts of articles, messages, pieces of information from everywhere and from nowhere,” Denby writes. “It’s likely that they are reading fewer books.” So, is technology really corrupting the adolescent mind, or is there another reason to the lack of reading books? “When they become twelve or thirteen, kids often stop reading seriously. The boys veer off into sports or computer games, the girls into friendship in all its wrenching mysteries and satisfactions of favor and exclusion,” he goes on to say, which almost leads one to believe that maybe he thinks technology is not nearly the whole issue. He continues, “Much of their social life, for boys as well as girls, is now conducted on smartphones, where teen-agers don’t have to confront one another.” Not only do teens use smartphones or tablets to get away from each other, they use them to get away from having to read.
A study posted from Common Sense Media called The Number of Teens Reading for Fun Keeps Declining stated, “A new study shows that kids read for fun less and less as they get older, with 45% of 17-year-olds saying they read by choice only once or twice a year.” The article then goes on to discuss the decline over the past 30 years. “In 1999, children ages 2 to 7 would read for an average of 45 minutes per day. In 2013, that number had dropped to an average of just over 30 minutes per day.” But, this article also states that it’s more younger kids that aren’t reading for pleasure because they have less homework than a teenager. “It’s no surprise that 53% of 9-year-old read for fun every day, but only 19% of 17-year-olds do. Yes, the teenagers have more Instagrams to post, but they also have more homework to do.”
Overall, the rapid decline of teenagers reading has more than one reason. There is technology, but then there is the amount of homework they have or just the amount of time they spend with friends. That doesn’t mean that ALL adolescents give up reading for pleasure for technology, but as the years go by and more technology is released, more and more teens may fall away from reading books.