A Crazy Little Thing Called “Reading Addiction”

I read “Beyond Literacy” Chapter 2 “Is Reading an Addiction?” and I must say I believe it very much can be an addiction. People read a lot of stuff, I mean A LOT! We read text book, internet articles, newspapers, magazines, our notes we take on lectures, books, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and every other social media posts out there. People have to read, and when you have to have something it becomes an addiction. I don’t think people get addicted to actually reading, but they definitely can get addicted to the things they read, like social media posts, books, magazines, etc.

I never thought that reading could very well be an addiction until “Beyond Literacy.” I actually did a Google search on “reading addiction” and there are 63,100,000 results in just .31 seconds! It blew my mind. I believe people’s internet addictions make this so called “reading addiction” so much worse. Many people in today’s world have to see that latest Facebook post someone posted or that last tweet someone tweeted. The internet itself brings so much more reading into our world. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told someone that I’m an English Major and they reply with, “I hate reading!” Then I go to their Facebook pages and there’s share after share of long articles on different subjects. News flash people, that’s reading!

Now I’ve always thought reading is very important to people. I think it broadens our imaginations, and it can help us learn so many things we would have never thought to learn. So come to my surprise when I read “Beyond Literacy” and it said that in the 18th and 19th centuries people saw reading as a bad thing. It makes me think back to when I was a child watching Beauty and the Beast and all the town folk made fun of Bell and worried about her sanity because of how much she read. I loved that about Bell and reading this maybe that’s why! Now I don’t know the time period that movie was supposed to mimic but my mind just went straight to it when I read that. It’s just the opposite from when I was in school, they loved when kids read, in fact every day we had time set aside just for silent reading.

Reading “Beyond Literacy” completely opened my eyes to how reading itself has evolved over the years. From discouraging reading to encouraging it and from simply reading on paper to reading on a screen. The world going all technological scares me to death because I love the simple pleasure of and actual book, but as long as people keep reading I may be okay…we’ll see I guess!

Link here-Beyond Literacy

Thanks for reading,

Natalie 🙂