Taking Time to Read
[caption id=”attachment_7041" align=”alignleft” width=”160"]
An infographic that illustrates the many factors that affect how much a person reads.
Infographic Credit: Amanda Higgs[/caption]
Have you noticed that you have been a little book deprived? Are you overwhelmed with all your new, yet untouched books on your bookshelves? Have your piles of unread books been growing at an alarming rate? Are life’s demands keeping you too busy, stressed, and tired to read? Well, you are not alone. On average, the American adult population reads about twelve books a year. Statistics have shown that no matter where you are from, what degree you have, or how much you earn, there has become a general trend in the world of books. We are simply not reading enough.
But, my question is: why isn’t the American population reading as much as we would like?
Personally, if I am going to be reading, I will need to devote a great deal of my time and energy into the book in my hands. I can’t just pick up a book and read for five minutes. No, sitting down to read means that I will be dedicating more than a few hours to my nose being stuck in a book. However, in an attempt to juggle schoolwork, work, my internship, and a personal life, I have been forced to push books, more specifically reading books for pleasure, to the recesses of my mind.
As a person who lives an extremely busy life, similar to the lives of most of the American population, I tend to turn to passive forms of entertainment as a way to relax during my free time. I spend the few hours of free time I have exercising, while listening to music, when I could be reading about the lives of the people who create the music in my headphones. When I am back home, my family and I will watch Once Upon a Time while eating dinner, instead of reading the fairy tales that inspired them. I turn to these passive forms of entertainment because they help me continue my multitasking lifestyle, and I am sure I am not the only one guilty of this. Many of us out there hardly ever do just one thing at once; instead, we do a million other things, trying to be as efficient as possible. However, we can’t do that with books, and that is one of the many amazing things about reading. A person cannot read and multitask with ease because books and the act of reading demand your full attention. For example, a book lover needs to have a cozy and safe place to read, so uncomfortable reading positions do not distract them. All readers need a quiet and relaxing place to read, in order for them to jump into the world between the leather-bound covers. The worlds and adventures created in the stories we read require our undivided attention. Without this attention, we are unable to fully experience the beauty of the novel, autobiography, or memoir in our hands.
Maybe, this is the reason why the average American adult does not read as much. Maybe, this is why I do not read as much as I would like. Maybe, it isn’t life that is stopping us from picking up the next story from our bookshelves, but rather something within ourselves. Books demand everything from us and to deny them that would be a shame.
So, every once in awhile, let’s take a few hours out of our days and remove ourselves from the school work, projects at work, errands, and everything else, and just simply read.
Source:
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/01/16/a-snapshot-of-reading-in-america-in-2013/
