Today’s adolescences don’t find the joy in reading today like in the past. There are many different reasons why this probably happens and one cannot blame one sole source for this decline in young readers, one of these reasons maybe because of the new advances in technology such as TV, video games and the internet. Back in the day, reading was the form of entertainment. Even after the invention of electricity, it wasn’t until just before the great depression that electricity was used for entertainment in the home and even then, with radio, people mostly relied on reading and simple games for entertainment. With advances in technology people, such as children with short attention spans, don’t need to read in order to keep from being bored. Another reason maybe the instant gratification that our society has come to demand. Reading, as we all know, is not a quick thing, it takes, patience, time, thinking. None of these attribute to instant gratification and are things that you have to work for. I believe that these reasons and many more are why kids don’t read today.
It will take a lot to get children back into reading. I think that parents need to start introducing their children to books sooner and the TV later. Parents also need to stop using TV as an at home babysitter, have their children turn the TV and computer off and spend time with them. I’m not trying to say that these things are all around bad, but too much is truly bad and I think that children start spending their life in front of a screen to early in life and that it has a bad effect. Another important thing is that parents need to show their children that reading can be exciting and that it can be relevant in their lives. A favorite book of mine that could be used for this is The Chronicles of Narnia.
I remember when my mom read this book series to me and my sister when we where eleven and six respectively. It was my mom’s idea of getting me off the Harry Potter craze. Either way I found that the book was every bit as exciting as it was for my mom when she read them as a kid. I found a world that I could escape to a world of magic and a place where good conquers all. What my mom loved about the books where that they had good morals; where even the good guys, if they do something wrong, experience consequences, good always conquers evil, and the story was rarely dark. I think that this would be a good book to read to children at adolescent age because it’s not just another lame children’s’ book but isn’t dirty or poor literature like some of the things that people read today. The Chronicles of Narnia is good literature, even by the standards of today’s toughest literary critics. It is a book that parents would be happy to see their children reading and a book that most adolescence would enjoy to read on their own.