Young people today just don’t read enough, right?
If you’re under the age of 30, you’ve probably been accused of this at some point in your life. In fact, it seems that every upcoming generation is stereotyped as lazier than the one that came before it. We’ve all overheard the same complaints: “always up to no good with their fancy devices,” “always at their computers or watching too much TV.” “Why, back in my day…” You know the drill. In the end both sides come to believe that kids in the old days were both more capable of entertaining themselves and walked uphill both ways while they did it.
But what if the public perception of youth culture is just a little bit wrong? What if young people actually turned out to be the age group that reads the most, and frequents the library the most? Could that be? A survey conducted by Pew Research Center aimed to find out the truth about youth and books. Their results show that not only do 18-24 year-olds read more than any other age group, but that many are more open to it because of the availability of e-readers and e-books. So before you curse the decline of print publishing, think of how it might serve the next generation of iPad, Kindle, and Nook readers, and read on to find out more about the Pew Center’s findings.
