Nowadays, a considerable proportion of society reads less books compared to past. The primary reason of declining book reading is decreased attention span due to prevelant use of social media platforms. To deal with this problem schools and individuals can take effective initiatives. This essay will demonstrate the causes and solutions of declined book readership in depth.
Increasing usage of social media affect attention span of people significantly, people tend to spend their time on their mobiles instead of reading books as it keep them entertained easily. Growing population of people engage in endless scroll and hours of binge watching television series rather than reading a book. The psychological mechanism behind this preference is the increased activity of their dopamine receptors. While reading allows steady rise in dopamine, online videos drastically boost it in the brain. This signals the brain’s reward and entertainment center at the moment but disrupts attention span in the long run. Thus, inconsciously people tend to spend their leisure time on social media as their brain needs more easy dopamine.
There are several measurments that can be implemented by educational institutions and individual efforts to tackle this issue such as campaigns and forming book clubs. Reading habits should be encouraged in schools with campaigns such as book exchange activities. Integrating books to social events can facilitate beneficial discussions and foster critical thinking in students. Furthermore, people gathering for book clubs can have similar effect on adults. People can socialize and broaden their horizons at the same time in these assemblies. Combining socialization with reading can increase the number of people who reads in the society.
In conslusion, reading habits may be reduced over time due to prevalent usage of social media, but by organizing social events involving book reading may be beneficial for the number of readers to rise again. This combination can even leads people to become bookworms as a group.