Reading Habits in New Generation People
In the 21st century, reading is no longer limited to printed books, newspapers and magazines alone. The scopes offered by the internet have revolutionized the reading habits of current generation.
It is known fact that most parents encourage their children to read books that are related to the school curriculum. There is section of parents, although small in numbers, who even discourage and scorn their children for reading other books as they want their children to spend their time only for reading things that can fetch them good marks. Hence, the kind of books and reading material that are read by students of this generation during their teenage years are mostly their text books.
Researchers believe that the internet has not only affected the reading practices of the current generation, but also their reading choices as well. The availability of the internet and search engines like Google has made preparing essays and projects easier. Now, students do not even have to step out of their homes or bother turning over the pages of a book for finding a particular content within the book. All they need is the click of a button and they will have everything they need appear within seconds on the screens of their computers. A mere search for key words can get them the exact content without having to read the whole article. There was a time when a good number of teenagers used to spend time on reading. The teenagers of this generation have, however, found alternatives to spend their time on such as internet games, television and social networking sites.
In spite of this, one cannot ignore the fact that more books are being sold now. More authors and publishers are getting profits from the publishing industry. There are still voracious readers who enjoy reading the works of Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Dickens and Dostoevsky. The emerge of e-books has revolutionized the publishing industry. Along with this, there exists another large section of people who read books of contemporary young Indian writers such as Chetan Bhagath and Ravinder singh. The quality of these books although is a matter of argument among writers and literary lovers, it remains a fact that these books have encouraged a large section of the urban Indian middle class to begin reading.