Reader Interviews

Talking to other students about their reading habits was interesting because what they were saying most of the time did not quite add up.  The majority of people like to read but said they have no time for it.  Then when they are asked about how long they are texting, watching tv, or on the internet, the least amount of time someone told me was 30 minutes and the most was 2 hours.   Could that time spent on social media and tv be spent on reading instead?  Yes, but most people told me they were too tired to read after getting back from school or finishing schoolwork.  Does reading require more energy than facebook?  Or is it just getting away from texts that they want?  Each person I talked to said they at least spent an hour a day doing homework, but at least everyone said that at least 3 times a week they feel unprepared for class.  People kept trying to defend their answers when talking to me, as if they felt guilty about not reading more or spending too much time on social media.  I think we are in an interesting age where we (21 years olds) are the technology generation- texting, facebooking, instagramming, but we did not grow up around that until the end of middle school/ high school.  So in the back of our minds we still crave hard books and wonder if we are spending too much time online and texting instead of talking face to face.  The generation that is growing up now does not know any different.  At restaurants you see a small toddler playing on an iphone or ipad or watching a video with headphones in and not interacting with the rest of the table.  People start getting facebooks in middle school now and start getting phones earlier and earlier.  I remember growing up walking down my street ringing doorbells and asking if my friends could come outside and play, will the kids growing up now look back and remember when they had to text someone to talk to them?