Are less people reading books? What do you think?

I often sit in the school Library during some of my free periods, staring at the books around me, with their worn covers, and limp, brown stained pages. They look so unloved, and abandoned. As the weeks go by I always sit in the same spot in the Library, staring at the exact same books, Just Listen, The Dream Merchant, etc. and they never move. Which means, nobody ever takes any books out. I’ve also noticed, that slowly, the shelves are being emptied. Section by section. Because there’s no demand. No one wants to read them. And I can’t help but die a little inside, every time I see a book disappear.
I know SOME people must read books or they would stop producing them, but I have to wonder, how many people in my generation actually read….
I know so many people who say “I don’t enjoy it”, “It’s boring”, “Why read a book when you can watch a film?”
But I just don’t understand it, ever since I can remember, I’ve loved books. When I was too young to read, my parents would read to me or I would just stare at the words and the way they made pretty swirls on the page. When I got older I would read books, and then copy them out, word for word, on sheets of paper, just to make the story last a little longer…..Now, I read endlessly, and then I blog about reading.

Do you read? Do your friends read? If so, why/why not? I’d love to get a discussion going, or hear your comments!
If not…ohh well, I enjoyed writing this blog anyway.. :L

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16 thoughts on “Are less people reading books? What do you think?

  1. I READ. BOOKS ARE AWESOME. MY FRIENDS READ. I mean, yeah the library at school is emptying, but theyre going up to Beeches, most of them. They’re not being thrown away. Books rarely get thrown away because the covers can’t be recycled. So if they don’t go to other school, they go to a charity shop. Somebody will be reading the books. OH. And hobby* in the tags. Not hobbie 😛

    • Ahaaa, GrammAR Nazi xD You see what I did there…? :L But thanks 🙂
      Yeah I know, but when they go up to main site, do you think anyone will read them? And don’t you think it’s kind of a shame that no one wants to read them at the 6th Form?
      They can’t be recycled? Thats interesting, I didn’t know that. Ooooooooh, knowledge stuffage xD

  2. It’s too much effort. We’re programmed to relax whenever we can and reading just seems to require too much effort, attention and general patience than vegetating in front of an asinine tv program or the interwebs.. People are reading fewer books partially because it’s too difficult a task compared to something easy and inane but also because they’re reading them online… Or are reading these blogs, many people read blogs, doesn’t count as a book but it’s reading nonetheless

    • Thats a really good point! I guess I never really thought of blogging as counting, but your right, by the time you’ve flicked through a few blogs you’ve probably read the equivelant of a short chapter.
      Yeah, I have to admit even I, sometimes look at a book and think nahh, I can’t be bothered.
      Do you think it’s also because of the fact we are supposed to be getting shorter attention spans because of the huge amount of media we’re exposed to everyday? Or do you think thats it’s a myth?

  3. Yes, I do… The huge amount of stuff in general, must have something to do with it, I think. Everything is faster paced now anyway, and reading isn’t something you can rush..well..to an extent. Media..like..tv, magazines, newspapers, internet, etc all compete to catch your attention, and we’re exposed to that treatment almost constantly, therefore we learn to expect instant gratification. We have so much choice, if our interest is not captured immediately or at least almost immediately, we become disinterested and look for something else. It’s all getting faster and faster all of the time (according to Moore’s Law, technological devices double in speed and capacity every 18 months or so…..something to do with transistors), most of today’s generation find most of the film and entertainment of say, 50 years ago, unimaginably boring. But that’s all a long time ago and we weren’t around so that’s perhaps irrelevant to us..so, a more relatable example, things that were (in our lifetime) once the acme of technological advances, like VHS, we now find tediously slow……having to wait six minutes rewinding time to get back to the start of the film…..unheard of…….ramble ramble

    • Yeah, I completely agree as well. For instance, I used to be able to just sit and watch Tv, however, latley I feel like I can no longer JUST watch Tv, I often find myself playing a game on the computer, social networking, listening to music or checking my phone. Which I hate, and have been trying to actively avoid doing. So I think this has a large impact on the book industry and people’s perception of books.
      And if you go by Moore’s Law, it will continue this way until 2020, and I can only imagine what it will be like by that point. Will everyone feel the need to do five things at once? It’s mindboggling, and slightly concerning.
      Aha, your not rambling; or if you are, I don’t mind because I’m interested in what your saying. it’s really great to get an intelligent opinion on this topic! Thank you.

  4. Yeah..the future is frightening..but I suppose maybe in some way multitasking improves some technical aspect of our brain? Not sure.. never before have our brains had to process so much information..must be training it in some way…as the technical bit improves, perhaps the emotional bit is dehumanised and we lose the capacity to think and feel, we consume “shocking” images and news every day yet it tends not to impair our functioning as perhaps it once did..I’m an expert on neuroscience I’m sure you can tell. Perhaps sometime in the future books will become completely obsolete, what with all the trees being murdered in their production and such, and I suppose it’s simply more convenient to have an entire library on one screen, it’s cheaper too. A lot fewer people are reading books because of the on screen alternatives. I reckon fewer people read in general but not as few as a neglected library shelf may suggest

    • Yeah I was wondering, because you deffinatly seem to know your stuff.
      Thats an interesting theory, I think it deffinatly does imporove our brain in certain aspects. However, I also suspect that it will have some negative effects for our brain as well. The Ying and Yang effect and whatnot. But, that being said, I know nothing about the brain…

  5. I love reading. There is no greater enjoyment than curling up on the sofa with a good book and some decent music and getting lost in fiction until the clock ticks to a pretty indecent time to be awake 😛 I think it’s such a shame that people neglect to read. With films everything is planned out and displayed before you and there’s no room for imagintation.

    • I agree! I’ve done that so many times, started reading a book and then next thing you know its 5 in the moring! 🙂
      Yeah! The really sad thing is, that a lot of movies these days seem to be based around books, and the books are often better, but no one ends up reading them because they can just watch the film…… *sighs with sadness*

      • I know right, it really is sad. I mean the amount of people I know who have only seen the Harry Potter films and don’t believe me when I say the books are better. I watched the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo today and I’m already planning to get the book. The same goes for One Day, I saw that at the cinema and I want to read the book to get the full experience of it.

        There’s just something so much more captivating about ink on paper than pictures on a screen. 🙂

      • Definitely!
        Not reading the Harry Potter books should be a crime! Seriously, lol 🙂
        Oooh, I’ve read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, you should definitely get it! It’s quite a slow paced book but Larsson’s an excellent writer! And the plot is complex, but in a great way 🙂 Was the film good? I saw the trailers for it but I was a bit unsure as to whether it would actually be any good….

  6. Haha! It should be! 🙂

    Awesome, I’m glad the book is good, the film was a bit slow paced too and a bit confusing so it seems quite true to the book in that respect then! But I’m guessing the confusing parts will be cleared up with the other two instalments or maybe it would have helped if I had read the book first haha. Either way it’s worth a watch.

    • Cool 🙂
      Yeah maybe, I havn’t read the other books in the series yet, but a friends leant the next book to me so I should get to read it soon 🙂 The start of the book was so confusing for me, although I can’t remember why. It almost put me off the rest of the book, but I carried on reading it and it got much better!

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