13 Reasons Why People Read Less and Less

Complaints about people not reading as much anymore are something I always hear from elder intellectuals. There are studies that show the correlation of education and wealth to people reading less but there are also more personal ones. I came up with a list of thirteen reasons why people read less – these are the ones I hear from my friends, from strangers when they see me reading, and from my own observations.

1. Reading books is attached to an image of someone with an oversized glasses, braces, and lousy-fitted shirt tucked in high-waist trousers. How many films have embodied this unattractive, anti-social, stuttering caricature? Countless! They are often the weird and the losers in the story.

2. Books are… just… not interesting. I have lost count of how many times people have said this to me after asking why I read books. Some said they tried but it didn’t help them to understand the point of reading. I respect their opinion. I don’t think there’s any other way I can argue against that but, please, allow me to let out a big sigh.

3. Abraham Lincoln was called an indolent man for reading too much, for writing endless notes, and for thinking somewhat ‘aimlessly’. When you read a book, you bury yourself into it. Non-readers would condemn us for being passive, lazy even.

4. We can have a movie marathon instead of reading all seven ‘Harry Potter’ books. We don’t need to imagine how lavish Gatsby’s parties are if we watch the film adaptation. We’d empathize with the Phantom’s tragedy even more if we see an actual person singing in agony. So, why do we even have to deal with words boringly printed on dusty sheets of paper?

5. There’s one important thing, especially for gens Y and Z who have short attention span, that video games have that books and films don’t. Many are hooked on video games because of a distinctly high level of interaction and engagement it requires from the players. Role-playing games, like books, have stories. They also have visual representation like in films. But these two limit us to being mere spectators. In video games, we are the characters. We complete the tasks. We kill the boss. We own the game. Now tell me who still needs books.

6. Scanning through the words of a book is easy-breezy. But reading and understanding it? That’s another story.

7. Time-consuming. Uhmmm… Well… Yes. I (hesitantly) agree.

8. We don’t need to read Bill Clinton’s whooping 957-page autobiography to know the story of his life. There’s Wikipedia – and other legitimate sources – available online to do the hard work for us. And the good news: they’re all just one click away.

9. People have become impatient because everything now is instant. Things have to be quick. We’ve grown an obsession with the efficiency that we’d opt for faster and easier approach to things. Reading a book from cover to cover requires effort, time, and lots of patience.

10. We are social animals. We prefer to go out with friends to catch up with their lives, to know who’s dating who, and to hear the latest news about your ex. A gossip about your ex’s new girl is definitely more exciting than Haruki Murakami’s out of this world existential dilemmas. I completely understand. (WARNING: This contains spoilers for ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’. Read at your own risk.) Who on earth would be interested in the story of a man who, while searching for his cat, met a teenage girl who habitually sits on her patio to discuss about death while gazing at a nearby abandoned house where an empty well caught his attention and later became his man’s cave which later was bought by a fashion-inclined woman who became interested in him because of the strange blue mark he got from a strange dream? Oh, by the way, apart from the cat, his wife also went missing. (WARNING: Last and ultimate spoiler.) His wife was having an affair with another man. Oops!

11. There are times we want to stay in bed but that doesn’t leave us out of the loop. We spend all day long scrolling through our news feed getting updates from Facebook – the #1 provider since 2004 of updates about where our friends (Facebook friends, at least) are traveling to, what are they having for dinner, and who is the newest addition to their four-legged furry family.

12. No time. Really? Really. Even just for an hour? Yes, I have important things to do. (Which includes #11.) Okay. Case closed.

13. My heart goes out to my friends who find books expensive. Finally! Someone has said it. For my friends who have a limited budget, I understand how impractical it is to buy books because they’ve become a luxury. Instead of buying books might as well spend on more important things, right?

No matter how mundane or shallow these reasons are, it’s the reality that has complex and serious repercussions. A nation that doesn’t read is a nation that empathizes the least. Hopefully, we will not reach this point.