Reading books has by far become an attention-absorbing issue, especially among educators and parents, as the rate of reading books among young generations keeps decreasing. This essay will provide some reasons for this trend before giving some solutions to this.
There are some major causes to the decline in reading habits. The wide-spread of technology is the initial one. Due to the emergence of internet-connected devices including tablets and smart phones, people can now easily access a wide range of book reviews, liberating them from reading a book to understand its meaning. Instead, they only need to scroll the screen for a while to digest the information. Additionally, the youth use AI to summarize the main idea of a book when they are in need. Because of these realities, people, especially the juveniles, do not have to read all the books like older generations did. Furthermore, children and teenagers would prefer to immerse themself in social platforms, namely Facebook and TikTok, rather than sit on a desk and read a book. Another contributing reason for this downward trend is a lack of facilities. As a matter of fact, reading spirit can be lowered by a shortage of reading facilities like local libraries and school libraries. This can be witnessed easily in developing countries, Vietnam for instance, rarely have well-equipped libraries but a few makeshift ones.
There are a number of solutions for this trend. Firstly, it is crucial to build up a good reading habit for children at an early age. Each parent should be a role model for their children in reading. This can be practised at weekends, when the whole family gather and read books together, or parents can let their kids read books on a daily basis. This will not only nurture a reading spirit but also strengthen family bonds. Reducing children’ screentime is another effective solution. In terms of adults, they can incorporate reading activities into their daily routine, or they can set up a reading challenge to New Year resolution. However, parental supervision is required when this is put into practise for students. In some countries like Belgium, technological devices such as tablets and smart phones are completely banned in schools in order to set aside more time for children to do physical activities like reading, and studying.
This essay has attempted to shed some light on both the reasons and the solutions for the decline of reading habits. I strongly believe that the reading rate will have increased in a few decades with the cooperation of family, school, social, and government.