Aislin Freedman, Senior
High school is a strange time for many. For some, it is the height of their lives; jocks, cheerleaders, and otherwise popular students rule the school, have crazy parties, and spend most of their free time with friends. For others, high school is a nightmare of too much homework, too little sleep, and rocky (or outright terrible) relationships. Teenagers try hard to distance themselves from who they were as children, find out who they are as a person, and fit in with peers. Books… oftentimes don’t fit into that picture.
Regarded as antisocial, nerdy, or outright weird, some teens forgo their paper companions for friends or status. Others find that they just don’t have enough time to read anymore. I recognize that my peers don’t read as much as they used to. Old friends who used to gush about their newest read for hours are now left searching for what to say when I so much as ask what they’ve been reading lately. Gone are the days when I could get book recommendations just by glancing at classmates and what paperback they had brought for the day. I have even noticed that in the past few years my reading habits have been in a sort of lull – I was stuck in a reading slump for a while, unable to fully immerse myself in a book the way I wanted to.
Having recently gotten out of my reading slump (and coming back with a bang – 23 books read since the start of January), I wanted to take a survey on the reading habits of my peers. I use Goodreads to keep track of my reads, give me suggestions for new books, and encourage me to keep reading with yearly challenges. As it is such a large part of my life, I find it hard to believe people don’t use it, or don’t even know what it is. Because of this, I also included some questions regarding the app in my survey.
I would like to start with a disclaimer that this survey does not accurately represent the statistics of the entire student population at MHS, however I had 32 responses, which isn’t a terribly small number either.
The first interesting statistic came up when I asked people how much they believe themselves to read, when compared to their peers. Almost half of the people surveyed said that they read more than their peers. Some of these people recorded reading over 40 books a year on average, so that is not a surprise, but many of these people recorded reading around 10-20 books a year on average. While this statistic could be taken to show that students assume those around them are reading significantly less than them, there is also evidence to support this claim. 66% of students reported reading under or around 10 books a year. Although almost the same number also reported high enjoyment of reading, only lack of time. While some students just don’t enjoy reading all that much, it is clear that many teens appreciate it and find value in it but push it aside for other tasks.
Unsurprisingly, students who reported reading levels on the generally higher side were also the ones who knew about, and reported more consistently, using Goodreads. The most common feature on this app seems to be the book reviews it provides, though this statistic is most likely partly due to some teachers asking students to write reviews on Goodreads. The second highest-used feature on Goodreads seems to be learning more about books to read in the future.
Although over half of those surveyed do not use Goodreads, it is obvious that there are correlations between reading more, enjoying reading, and using the app to keep track of books.
While I admit there are many ways this survey could be improved, a few extra statistics that I would be fascinated to see would be if people use other apps to keep track of their reading, if students wish they were able to read more but find themselves with a lack of free time to do so, and also what value teens find in reading. Do students feel that finishing a book is not an accomplishment worth being proud of? Do they think it unimportant and merely a distraction to everyday life? These are all questions that I think the survey could have done more to look into. However, I found the statistics that I did manage to gather to be interesting and noteworthy.