Reading habits – Are you too heading towards 20-20 ?

HARISH MONGA

Is the habit of reading books gradually declining? The answer is obviously ‘Yes’ now. But this change in attitude is worrisome for all as a race without reading is a race without hope.

In the early days or to be more precise, 70 or 80 years back when the resources of individuals were limited, book reading was considered as one of the basic requirements like eating food or drinking water. Those unable to buy books were able to read books of their choice and liking from libraries spread all over a certain locality at quite affordable rates to be charged on daily, weekly or monthly basis.

The reason for not liking reading, statistics shows that there are three main aspects. One is the low level of culture (not education) of the people. Second, from a young age, it is not nurtured into a good habit of reading and the third is “exam-heavy education”, which makes young children not have the time and energy to read books outside.

According to the media, the average person in China only reads 0.7 books/year, Vietnam with 0.8 books, India with 1.2 books, Israel with 64 books and Korea with 7 books. Only Japan can compare with Western countries with 40 books/year; Russia alone is 55 books. In 2015, 44.6% of Germans read at least one book a week – similar numbers for the Nordic countries. The Jews are the only people with no illiterate people; even beggars always have a book by their side.

I started writing a letter to the editor of four lines, then to small write ups for official magazines to one thousand word articles, followed by middles of around five hundred words.  Now, after a gap of more than a decade, I started a column on my domain – Quick-100, with an idea that the reading capacity of readers had declined to greater extent.

Frankly speaking, What I feel is that teachers alone cannot be blamed for this sorry state of affairs, even parents never encourage their children to read books other than text books.

When I met a very senior judgement pronouncing officer, who during the course of discussions on various issues including the reading habits, said, I have to read a lot and I read a lot but…..  To interpret the dotted line, when I responded, the readers graph is on downward trend and that is why; I have switched over to Quick-100 words column on my own domain, which is getting a good response, so far as numbers of readers are concerned.  He, however, pointed out that it looks you too are heading towards 20-20 words, meaning thereby, the five days Cricket matches too have come down to 20-20 overs.

For a moment, I thought that to come up with write ups so precisely in 20 words only will be a difficult job but the next question in mind was, we are spending our time on irrelevant issues at the cost of getting more knowledge from the habit of reading.  The technology seems to wipe out the era of books. It is now replaced with videos and other forms of entertainment. Let’s build the affection for books, read books and stay intellectually active.

Over to readers!