Books. Magazines. Newspapers. The idea of reading in today’s society is terrifying. No wonder the literacy rate has gone down when reading is not encouraged but frowned upon by a society who would rather spend their time on YouTube or TikTok than immersing themselves in all kinds of stories ranging from memoirs of favorite celebrities to fantastical stories about dragons and fairies. 

Schools foster their students to learn and love reading until high school, then reading goes on the back burner as it’s not a required subject. In some cases, kids are called stereotypical nerds just for doing something they enjoy. According to Literacy Inc., 56% of young people claim they read less than 10 books a year. Compare that to passionate readers who may read upwards of 100 books—each year . All that is not to say everyone needs to be fulfilling that goal; however, feeding that need to escape from the real world is an important form of stress relief. 

Imagine the star football player or the talented lead role in the play was bullied, the situation is so unrealistic because society applauds those passions and discourages others. Teenagers in high school care deeply about how they come across to their peers and so if you don’t have a popular passion that society recognizes, then why is it important?

Many of us grew up with the Harry Potter series and The Hunger Games series, two extremely popular, in-demand series that started young readers on the path to becoming lifetime readers. As technology, sports, and socializing began to take over our lives, once again reading was put in the corner and punished for being an unwanted pastime. When the world changes, so do our interests, much like trends. When we were younger, reading was all the rage but we grew up like everyone else and found that watching the movie adaptations was a lot quicker than sitting down to read a 300 page book. In a world full of convenience, reading is the ultimate inconvenience. 

Not only do we suffer from the lack of reading but so do institutions that provide the resources to read: public and school libraries, online reading services like Libby and Hoopla, and the popular platform for readers to connect on—Goodreads. Services like these are meant to aid the reading experience and connect people around the globe with opportunities to share their opinions, but if nobody has an opinion because nobody is reading, these services suffer and ultimately shut down. 

The journey back to reading for most of us is a difficult path. It could be looked at as a relaxing time to ourselves or a punishment. School assigned books for class compared to choice book units. Why do we prefer choice books over assigned? This is the problem, by forcing ourselves to sit through books we may not like just for a grade, it weakens the chances of us ever picking up a book again due to the fear of being put through the same experiences as school reading assignments. When reading is supposed to be a pastime, it shouldn’t feel like a graded assignment. 

Some of us have it better than others though. For the lucky few of us that have been given a family full of lifetime readers, we have it easy. For us, reading is celebrated and enjoyed. For us, reading is a special time cut out of a busy day. For us, reading is our passion.