When passing through the halls, some students can be heard discussing their favorite books with their peers. Others whisper about the SparkNotes they used to finish their reading for class. It raises a question: what is our culture around reading?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, people between the ages of 15 and 19 only read for nine minutes a day in 2024. In contrast, people of the same age were spending 1.3 hours a day on electronics for leisure time.

Senior Bethany Dykstra noted that although she knows many people who enjoy reading, some students disliked the idea of reading when it became enforced in their classes.

“I like the idea in senior year of being able to choose a class that has books that I’m interested in, but honestly, if I was in one that I didn’t want to be placed in or just in a regular class, I probably would not like reading as much as I do,” Dykstra said.

While junior Frances Mathews reads many books in her free time, she estimated that 20 percent of her friends read often. Mathews said that it might be hard to convince students to read, as she thinks reading in school can feel like a burden to some students.

“I feel like sometimes it negatively affects people. Reading for school makes them not want to read on their own because they don’t see it as a fun thing anymore,” Mathews said.

Librarian Bridget Knightly said she sees fewer students participating in outside reading requirements than in the past. According to Knightly, teachers used to bring many classes into the library for lessons.

“The librarians would give book talks to the classes to get them excited about reading. We still have some classes [come to the library], but not as many as we used to do in the past,” Knightly said.

Mathews said that she feels like screens are a big problem for reading, because people will prefer to participate in easily consumable media rather than reading, which she thinks takes more effort.

“I think it’s just important to keep educating about why social media isn’t as good, because that’s just going to rot your brain compared to traditional reading,” Mathews said. “I feel like if you’re reading good books in school, it’s going to make you more engaged.”

Dykstra believes that giving students more freedom to choose what they want to read will generate enthusiasm among them, leading to increased investment and creating more opportunities to read. She remembers her elementary school teachers telling her the best things students could do for themselves was to read.

“I know a lot of people say that reading gets boring for them after maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but I think it opens your eyes, depending on what type of books you’re reading, to different people’s situations, or to different styles of writing. It can improve your own writing as well,” Dykstra said. “It’s just really enjoyable; I really like it.”