There were some interesting
similarities, but more importantly, some interesting differences between the
responses on my reader surveys. Reading habits are a fascinating topic, and
from my experience, I think that all ends of the spectrum are represented in my
age group. I have friends and family that read almost every day, and can burn
through books in as quickly as a week. I also have friends that probably
haven’t picked up a book since they had to read “The Great Gatsby” in our
senior year of high school. While that degree of difference wasn’t necessarily
reflected in the 4 surveys I conducted over the course of the past week, I
think that the reading habits of college students in general are widely varied.
First
and foremost, all four of my respondents stated that they considered themselves
as someone who likes to read. However, all four had different genres of
literature that they preferred to read for pleasure; nonfiction, historical
fiction, fantasy, magazines, fiction, comedy and war novels, were all mentioned
once throughout the surveys. There was also a wide range of responses for the
number of hardbound books my respondents had, ranging from 4 to 60+. What this
seems to suggest is that the number of physical books an individual has does
not necessarily reflect reading habits. Whether or not this can be attributed
to increasing usage of technology or simply due to the fact that they are all
college students I can’t confidently say one way or the other, but
interestingly enough, the individual who only had “3-4” books spent the least
amount of time on social media, the least amount of time watching TV, listed
reading as one of his favorite forms of relaxation/entertainment, and stated
that he/she normally reads “until I fall asleep.”
It
was a commonly-held opinion among my respondents that reading is an important
societal endeavor, with ¾ suggesting that reading has major educational or
developmental implications. What that specific benefit is, however, is another
story; my respondents seemed to have a difficult time with the question: “The
word literary refers to . . .” giving responses that ranged simply from “books”
to “teaching/emphasizing proper punctuation and grammar.” The responses to the
question about poetry were also varied, and no clear consensus was evident
between the responses. My take on these two findings is that reading is a
personal characteristic with personal implications. It means something
different to each individual depending on their experiences and their
personality. However, while it may be a confusing or difficult topic to
eloquently describe and discuss, the findings here are clear—reading is
important to the respondents in my survey, and in my opinion, that sentiment is
fairly commonly held amongst college students.
I found similar responses in my interviews as well. It seems as if college students understand that reading is important but the level in which they appreciate reading varies from person to person. But I found it interesting how your responses didn't quite indicate a correlation between a person's reading habits with their social media habits. For me, I found that they either shifted one way or the other with no in between; if one person spent more time on social media, the less reading they did and vice versa. But I think not finding a distinct correlation between the two just goes to show how personal reading can be to an individual based on his or her lifestyle choices or background.
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