By Tina Huang

Staff Writer

I am a reader. I always have been. I was one of “those kids” who would regularly stay up way past my bedtime reading books in bed.
When assigned books for school, I know a minimal amount of people who actually read the book the whole way through. I even know people who have never been to the public library before.
Even though I still consider myself a “reader”, I have found myself reading less and less. I was at the library studying a couple of days ago and realized it had been months since I looked for a good book to read, so I decided to change that fact. As I walked through William T. Cozby library, I could not help but notice the contrast between the literature and the technology.
People were constantly milling around the DVD section. There was always someone trying to find a video to watch. The computers were never vacant. People in every direction were on their laptops and phones. Yet the actual rows of bookshelves were deserted. Even the magazine shelves seemed to have more activity than the bookshelves. People just do not appreciate books as much, especially with the more accessible eBooks and movies.
Books such as Little Women, Frankenstein, Romeo and Juliet and Robinson Crusoe were considered the popular books of their times. These same books are what we read in high school classes now. Many students cannot even comprehend these books – books that were best sellers when they were published. Reading is not the only thing that is in decline; the overall quality of entertainment such as shows and literature is also on decline.
Now the popular books are Twilight, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games. This is such a different level than Shakespeare and Jane Austen. I am not attacking contemporary writers; I do believe that many are very talented and amazing writers, but it seems that books now cannot even be compared to those written in earlier centuries.

And something that does not help the reading situation is that the majority of popular books now are made into movies. Twilight, Harry Potter, The Help, The Time Traveler’s Wife, most of Nicholas Sparks’ books. The list goes on and on.

Short, quick, and laziness seems to be a growing trend as generations pass. We are inclined to favor the simpler method. Innovations have made life a lot easier, but a lot lazier as well.

As for news, I have an app on my iPhone called Summly. It uses an algorithm to process news articles to condense them into short, easily-read mini articles that I can skim. Sure, as busy as I am as a high school student, I very much enjoy being able to know what is going on without having to sit down for minutes at a time to read whole articles, but at the same time, it is not the same as reading a whole news article.

Many reasons can be seen as causes of this degeneration of literature and reading. Among them are time, technology and the progression of our culture as a whole. Perhaps, as much as our world is advancing technologically each day, we are heading the wrong way.

I have found it increasingly more difficult to sit myself down to read a book for my personal enjoyment as I did when I was younger. But when I do read, I still enjoy it. The hard part is getting started. There are so many other distractions.

In the end, perhaps it is technology that is taking over, which I believe is the case – we have too many entertainment options and much of it lies in the palm of our hand As banal as this argument seems, there is a reason. It is most likely true. Hopefully, I will slow down to stop and smell the flowers.

Or in this case, stop and read a piece of literature.