The power of reading is lost

Reading seems to have suddenly vanished from day-to-day activities of children as well as from adults. It used to be thought as the best way of enhancing one’s vocabulary and language, but today, it has become alien to newer generations as they are exposed to advanced technology. By doing so, it might quench their thirst for knowledge, but little do they know that in search of a short cut to education, they fail to understand the details of their subject.

Reading not only improves our attention span, it also improves our ability to express ourselves, our writing skills and in turn, the richness of our language. There was a time, not long back, when children would hit libraries and reading rooms as their favourite pastime. The reading culture was so big and reached the extent to which authorities had to start mobile libraries to cater to children living in suburbs.

It’s sad and disheartening to see that such a great hobby has gone down the drain. There are still a limited number of children today that love to read, but even those are e-books. Children have no idea what a journey it used to be hunting for the right books from one shop to another, or what pleasure it used to be to sit away from the crowd and flip the pages of a book. Getting to make new friends for the sake of exchanging books used to be enthralling and without realising, we all became social beings. Books were used as a mode to connect people with each other.

Today, technology and media has taken away all the fun from our lives, thus distanced us from each other. We no longer feel that the existence of other people matter unless some sort of technology is involved. Children today are able to tell you about various sites where you can find reading material but when it comes to knowing the author, his or her dwellings and way of writing — they are lost. We used to connect to each author and writer as if we knew them personally, and that according to me, was the power of reading!

— The reader is an Indian principal based in Dubai