It’s a quiet Saturday evening. Parents and siblings are tucked away in their respective rooms so the house is silent, save for the steady trickle of raindrops on the roof. You nestle into the couch, one hand grasping a steaming mug of tea, the other scrolling through TikTok. It is a mindless practice, this scrolling, and you begin to grow bored. Only then do you remember the book on your nightstand, a spontaneous borrow from the library you’d all but forgotten existed. Grabbing it, you decide to read a chapter or two to unwind before heading to bed. As your fingers flip to the first page, you try and fail to remember the last time you opened a book that wasn’t a school-assigned novel.
Three hours later you emerge from the reading haze in disbelief, your tea cold and forgotten. Your hands grip the sides of the book, face flushed, fighting exhaustion to get through one more chapter. What you read was not a book; it was a raw, wonderful experience that caused the rest of the world to fall away right from the opening lines. Sleep drags on your eyelids, dark and heavy, the novel slumping against your chest. The last thing you remember as you begin to lose consciousness is a line from a poem strangely enough. In the words of the great poet Mary Oliver, “oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?”
A true book lover would describe reading as magic. To a reader books are not just books, but universes, trapped in their bindings and patiently waiting to be discovered by a pair of willing eyes. Nevertheless, with the expansion of social media in an era of “screenagers,” does anyone read physical books anymore?
One might assume teenage reading rates have declined in the past years, given the expansion of the internet as our main source of information. And yes, it is impossible to ignore the technologically-dependent shift society has taken. Why read when you have the world’s information at your fingertips? There is a reason certain library books, (like those old, word-dense encyclopedias), haven’t been touched in years. Students overwhelmingly prefer to do research on computers, due to the easy accessibility and the volume of information available online.
“During class I like using my computer for researching because it’s easier, and a lot of the library books aren’t really relevant anymore,” said sophomore Anwesha Waghmare.
So yes, students are not checking out informational books. However, just because people are less inclined to read physical non-fiction books doesn’t mean the consumption of paper books are dying. Monte Vista, along with a myriad of other high schools in the area, offer an online reading platform called Sora, which gives students access to a wide variety of ebooks. This creates a simple way to virtually check out books. Despite having online options available, it seems like Monte Vista students still favor physical novels for recreational reading.
“I think a lot of students really still prefer paper books here,” said Lisa Xavier, the librarian at Monte Vista. “I’ll say we don’t have a book available, but the Contra Costa County Library has it digitally, and the students will tell me they’d rather wait or get it on Amazon.”
Modern high schoolers don’t have much time to spare for themselves. When a free moment does present itself, teenagers often resort to casual scrolling through social media.
“Sometimes I’m on my phone when I need a break and I’m not at practice or doing homework,” said sophomore Rayne Ripperger, a varsity athlete on Monte Vista’s golf team. “I just don’t really have time to read anymore.”
This raises the question: how do people ever get around to books with all the distraction of Instagram and TikTok? Though logically it would appear that the prevalence of social media has taken away from the reading population, these apps are actually encouraging the youth to explore new novels and broaden their reading horizons. Platforms like BookTok have skyrocketed, gaining billions of viewers and making reading “cool again.” The narrative surrounding reading has changed, and young people have been creating a demand for trending literature.
“BookTok has become really popular since the pandemic, and has affected what people want to read,” Xavier said. “Our book checkouts have actually gone up, partly because there’s more talk about reading out in the universe and on social media.”
The bottom line is that books are timeless pieces of media. Whether people are checking out novels from libraries or buying from bookstores, books will continue to be read and enjoyed. For every student that equates books to chores, there are just as many who read entirely for the joy of it. Whether you’re bored, inspired to explore a new world, or simply wishing to forget your own, there is something for everyone in a story.
