Dear Editor,
Through your esteem daily, I would like to highlight an important issue that the reading habits among youth id fading day by day. There is no denying the fact that today’s youth has lost touch with books. Reading among the youth has deteriorated in such a way that it raises concern among the literature loving class of the society.
The culture of reading books is crucial for independent knowledge acquisition and lifelong learning. It builds in a person the essential attributes for self-advancement and national development. But today, taking majority of the free time, internet, mobile phones, social sites, TV and entertainment programmes occupy the minds of the modern youth.
A negative effect that social networking sites are having on the younger generation is taking them away from the printed word. This is largely owing to the fact that Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites are far more appealing to them.
Modern youth has totally forgotten that book reading does not only nourishes the soul but rejuvenates the human intellect in probing things deeper, analysing things, and providing guidance to people, to instances of life that they have not yet been exposed to.
The habit of reading enables the mind to think over objects of interest and help a person in making informed decisions. Unfortunately, the number of book readers is continuously decreasing which is an indication of scarcity of knowledge in future.
D P Singh (Raju),
Jammu
