Fully Booked: The practice of reading books has become scarce with advancements in technology

Sitting slouched with my legs crossed in the waiting room of the dentist office, I pull out my worn copy of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith and flip to the page I left off on. My bookmark finds its familiar place between the final page and binding. 

The mystery of my reasons for reading permeates the sterile air of the office. Maybe I’m a luddite. Maybe I’m an intellectual. Maybe I’m just weird. Maybe I’m trying hard to curate a certain image. 

In reality, I’m just reading to read. There’s no ulterior motive. I’ve loved books since I was little when my mom would read me “Goodnight Moon” nightly. But in a day and age where the norm is necks bent over at 90 degree angles to stare into a device with fingers tapping noiselessly on screens, my little book is an anomaly.

According to the American Psychological Association, less than 20% of teenagers read books, magazines or newspapers for pleasure, while over 80% use social media daily. As reported by Scientific American, reading directly correlates with furthering brain development, and the low percentage of children and teenagers actively reading indicates negative consequences later in life. This could manifest as limited vocabulary or word pronunciation as an adult.

I’m tempted to make a bold claim that the “art of reading” is lost. But what I really mean is that the simplicity of reading is gone. People don’t really read anymore. And I mean more than classics forced upon kids in school. There’s an endless amount of culturally significant books to learn from. Trashy romance novels popularized on TikTok shouldn’t count. Branch out! Within a few hundred thin pages lie perspective-shifting, eye-opening ideas and characters. 

Reading is more than escapism — even in the most fictional fiction book there’s something to learn. It’s this wonderful subconscious learning that you won’t notice until you use the knowledge, recalling it and surprising yourself with the word or information.

For me reading is simple: it’s habit. But instead, in public it feels like I’m making some sort of statement.

If I carry the books I’m reading around with me at school (notably from the past few months: “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut and “Tender is the Night” by F. Scott Fitzgerald) it’s an instant conversation starter. If I had a penny for every time I heard “I’ve never heard of that before” from my peers, I’d have at least ten bucks.

Ok, maybe I’m generalizing. There are coveted moments of comradery when you glance up and see another reader. These interactions are so rare that the most mundane shared smiles become instantly memorable. 

Most recently this happened to me at the airport. My partner in reading was a lady with technicolored glasses and furry socks meant to look like cats. She smiled and glanced at my book, gave the cover a once-over and went back to hers. I did the same. 

I can’t help but think that the ramifications of my generation’s lack of reading may lead to the majority of Gen-Z being somewhat uneducated. Reading books is vital to a person having a well-rounded education, apart from school and street smarts. 

You may be thinking: why? Why aren’t teenagers reading for pleasure? It’s not as simple of an answer as video games or social media, although both are undoubtedly contributing factors. I think that it’s an overall shortened attention span. Reading takes patience, and most kids my age don’t have enough to sit through a movie, let alone read a whole book.

Our generation still has time to turn this around. I’m confident that reading can be repopularized as a fun thing to do for enjoyment by teenagers if more high schoolers look up from their phones and go to local libraries and bookstores to find topics that interest them. I hope that eventually bland waiting rooms will be full of people transported to fictional realities — all thanks to a book.