*!! NOT YET FINISHED !!*

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Contextualizing Changing Reading Habits in an Ever-Changing (Internet) Society

-- By LinusKatzenbach - 04 Dec 2024

Intro: Reading habits are changing

A shockingly large share of 46 percent of Americans didn't read a single book last year, a recent study found. This constitutes not only a decline compared to the past, with only 39 percent of Americans who did not read any book in 1982, but, perhaps even more dramatically, one that can be observed in every group of society regardless of gender, race, education, and age, and which only seems to accelerate in its pace.

Considering the above, taken together with the fact that this steady decline of reading habits is most notably happening among younger members of society, a trend that was likely further accelerated by school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, it does not come as a particular surprise that Rose Horowitch in a recently published article in The Atlantic, found, by talking to many esteemed professors in the field of literature like Professor Nicholas Dames from Columbia University who has taught Literature Humanities since 1998, that even in highly selective, elite colleges, many students are overwhelmed by reading assignments and have trouble staying focused even on shorter texts.

Understanding and making use of this fact requires, first, to explore the reasons for this observed trend (which will be attempted in the first part of this essay), allowing, second, to evaluate this development, and contextualize it with that of society as a whole (forming the second part of this essay).

Why are Reading Habits changing?

Subsection A

Subsection B

Are these changes just reflections of changes in society?

Conclusion

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