Technology is constantly evolving – are you keeping up with humanity’s high-speed evolution? Nothing feels better than staying connected and up-to-date with the ongoings around us. Watching notifications blow up our phones, having endless of text messages to reply to, are some daily activities we just cannot stop engaging with. Thus we at Daastan ask the question: where does this leave reading? Well, we are certainly not the only ones asking this question. Researchers recently conducted survey data collection studies to find out more about the current Reading Habits of Generation Z (those born between 1996-2015) in Pakistan. Let’s have a look at what the results showed us.
Reading Habits Level Up to 4 Hours
Saadia Mushtaq, Saira Hanif Soroya, and Khalid Mahmood allotted questionnaires to the student population of a private higher secondary school of Lahore district and to one semi-government school. 400 students were recruited and the response rate was near perfect at 97.75%. Students reported to read up to 4 hours (daily) on average, and most of this time would be used for academics or leisure reading. It is understandable that academics take up a lot of students’ reading time. Therefore, it was still a great catch to find leisure reading score high on the popularity polls. How many hours per day do you think you read? And what do you spend most time reading?
Reading Outside The Library
One of the most significant findings from the research mentioned above was probably the lack of love in libraries. Students rarely chose libraries as their preferred reading space. In fact, the classroom was rated above the library. One possible explanation of what caused this unpopularity could be that students simply prefer to adopt information from the Internet (which was another finding in this study). This could make libraries lose their purpose if students are also already feeling at comfort at home.
Another reason why libraries are “out” could be that there simply are not enough attractive facets in place. It was reported in another study that there were emerging challenges faced by academic libraries in Pakistan. Some of the prospective challenges included lack of human resources, issues with technological modalities, and problems surrounding library space. At least we know that if libraries looked anything like Citadel’s Library from Game of Thrones then we would surely not have any popularity issues to deal with.
Promoting Reading Habits From a Young Age
Distractions could possibly be one of our worst enemies. It is reasonable that concerns are being raised regarding the directionality of where reading and literature is headed. The generous amount of impressions we receive on a day-to-day basis, leaves us with less time to keep focus. Researchers are thereby emphasizing the importance of implementing reading as part of children’s daily routine. Not only could this be helpful for them in the long run, but their attention span can expand as well. Here you can read about other cool impacts that reading has on us.
Are you out of books to read this summer? Make sure to check our “Top 5 Books For Your Summer Reading” blog for great recommendations you do not want to miss!
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