I was at the library the other day and as I was trying to find a place to sit down, I took in my surroundings. I noticed that there were about sixty people on that floor, about 2,500 books, and less than 12% of those people were reading books. It baffled me how one can be surrounded by all of that knowledge in those books and yet still rely on tablets, computers and smartphones. This inspired me to look up the statistics of adults who still read books. According to the Pew Research Center, 27% of adults haven’t read a book in the last year. Furthermore, the article spoke about the impact of technology and how we are in a state of transition to a more digital world. Here are some examples of that digital platform.
- Podcasts
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Radio is one of the oldest forms of media. It seems as though radio is starting to fade out of style and is being replaced by podcasts. Thinking back to 2009 when I was in high school, I remember when podcasts were first becoming popular and then over the next few years, I barely heard a thing about podcasts. In 2018, I started to notice a rise in podcasts and in 2019 it seems impossible to not run into a podcast. With a recent upgrade on my Apple products, I got the podcast app and have been listening to several podcasts. I have to say I was impressed and understood why radio was starting to fade out and why podcasts were making their way in.
- Online Blogs
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In this day and age of social media platforms, online blogs are at an all-time high when it comes to popularity. The last time I saw a physical magazine was when I was at the doctor’s office. I have to say personally I don’t pick up a magazine at the doctor’s office, I jump on Instagram and access E! Entertainment and catch my pop culture news that way rather than by picking up the latest tabloid that is on the coffee table between chairs. One example of an online blog is Tumblr. I had a Tumblr in 2012 and ended up taking it down in 2014 due to the fact that Tumblr was no longer popular like it once was, and I needed another platform to showcase my writing. With the shift of the digital age, Tumblr has gained more users, including Taylor Swift, and I made one again now that the platform is generating more views. . Online blogs have become so popular that many advertisers for companies have started using that to advertise for their clients.
- Vlogging
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Vlogging has been around as early as 2012 on YouTube. In recent years it’s become even more popular. So popular, in fact, that A-list celebrities such as Kylie Jenner and Shay Mitchell have YouTube channels where they post videos. YouTube has opened the door for the average Joe to become famous if they work hard enough and post enough content. There is even an event hosted by YouTube to celebrate those who use their platform. Some of my favorite people to follow are comedian Jade Fox, LGBTQ+ advocate Ambers Closet, Lifestyle vloggers Haley Jordan and Brittany Daniel, and fitness pop star The Fitness Marshall. This is just an example of the diversity that YouTube has and what kinds of platforms people have built with this kind of social media.
- eBooks
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Some would say that reading books is going out of style; I would beg to differ. I think the way books are being read is evolving. Libraries have been converting books on their shelves to eBooks because the number of people who read a physical book has gone down significantly. I know that the Phoenix Public Library offers eBooks on an app called Libby that you can check out for two weeks at a time, unless someone else wants to read it. Personally, I like to brush the pages of a book and read a physical book at night or to pass time during the day, but having the Libby app allows me to take my tablet with me when I go out so I don’t bend the pages in my book from it being in my backpack.
So, are books going out of style? Maybe they are, or maybe the format in which we get our information is changing. Either way, there will still be plenty of people reading books in the future.