Milennials Are Reading More Books Than Their Parents
Over the past decade, almost everyone who works in the publishing industry -- editors, agents and many authors -- became worried or convinced that the internet would make literature obsolete. Who'll remember the classics, the thinking went, when nobody can even recall the tweets they'd just read a minute ago?
Fortunately, it appears that our attention spans are pretty resilient, despite digital distraction everywhere. The generation most comfortable with technology is also the most likely to pick up a book -- or at least download it -- reports the Pew Research Center.
Sure, 90% of 16- to 29-year-olds use social networking sites and 77% own a smartphone, but nearly half of them "report reading a book -- in any format -- on a daily basis," Pew found. In fact, 88% of milennials had read one in the previous year, as opposed to 79% of people over 30.
They're also more likely than older generations to visit a public library, and younger milennials visit libraries more frequently than older milennials.
OK, paperback and hardcover sales are down, but 37% of milennials read e-books, and a story is just as compelling on a screen as it is on a dead tree. (Plus, shlepping boxes of books is the absolute worst part of moving to a new apartment.)
So if you're worried about the future is gonna look like "Fahrenheit 451" -- or, for that matter, "Idiocracy" -- try to relax. Young people have an unprecedented amount of stuff to occupy their time, and they're still giving books a chance. Even if they're choosing "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent" over "Moby Dick" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls," c'mon, that's an improvement over TMZ and Pornhub.
