Guest Post- The Lack of Avid Readers in a Twitter World

The Lack of Avid Readers in a Twitter World

The advent of social media sites around the world has had detrimental effects on many school children because of the lack of time they now spend reading in lieu of the better alternative of web surfing. Twitter has wholeheartedly contributed to this increasing downturn of readers due to its 140 character limit which further encourages users to scan through articles and sites on the internet, rather than completely read through anything. This translates further into books, newspaper, and magazine articles which are constantly looked over. The media has additionally caught on to this, and now develops “sensationalized” headlines in an effort to draw in more readers.

I have grown increasingly tired of seeing tabloid-style headlines splashed across many news stations and news stories during the past few years. Have we really degenerated to a society that does not care about “real” news and resorts to celebrity gossip and husband/wife domestic abuse? What happened to the days of good literary reading, in which Tolstoy, Dickens, and Hemmingway were avidly read among the population, and the news contained much more substance than it does today? Now, we are lucky to find a child who has read a single book on their own, much less a book of literary merit. It is a disheartening thought to perceive these younger children who are already spending hours a day online, rather than participating in something more fulfilling like playing outside or reading a book. The loss of avid readers is a great blow to society and will subsequently cause an age of the uninformed citizens to overrule the rest of society.

While I myself enjoy reading, and like to surround myself with others who like to read just as much, there are still a growing amount of people in my age group who loathe going to the library and go bookstores for the “trendy” aspect of a coffeehouse. It needs to become a “fad” now to read and be informed, rather than simply spout off facts you saw on someone’s Twitter account or read on another social media site. There are very few reputable news sources now that accurately report on events that are responsible for changing our society, rather than small events that impact a handful of people though draw major headlines. In this globalized era, we need to be surrounding ourselves with information about the foreign nations we are currently dealing with: Iran, North Korea, the UAE, etc. It is a depressing fact that many college age students cannot pick out the U.S. on a map without names on it, and the only way we can further combat this apparent downfall in knowledge is by promoting reading at a young age. Increasing the amount of reading programs in elementary age students will go a long way in securing a solid base for the next generation.

This post was contributed by Caitlin Smith, who writes about the top online course. She welcomes your feedback at CaitlinSmith1117 at gmail.com