Why Teenagers Read Better Than You

From Tomorrow Museum: Why Teenagers Read Better Than You. An excerpt.

Asked to picture a reader — a passionate reader — many of us will think of ourselves when we were young. Tucked under covers with a flashlight, staying up until the morning, so desperate to see the story play out. Maybe you didn’t have friends to sit with during lunch period, so you hid in the library. Maybe your parents didn’t let you keep a TV in your bedroom — or maybe they did but you thought sitcoms were stupid. You needed solitude — to shut the door behind you and escape from the daily trials of childhood. Homework, hormones, teasing, rules, chores, boredom.

China Mieville, at his talk at the Harvard Bookstore a few weeks ago, said he wrote his YA book “Un Lun Dun” because he’s “jealous of the way [young people] read.” No matter how much he loves a book now, it’s never quite as intense an experience. Cynics might say his publishers encouraged him as young adult books are so profitable, but, “if it were a mercinary decision,” Mieville explained, he’d just write ten more Bas Lag sequels.

For all the alarmism in our dwindling newspaper book sections on how our collective declining attention spans make novel reading more and more impossible, one point is completely lost: who reads more than teenagers?

As I explained in my talk at the Media in Transition conference at MIT a few months back, YA book sales are rocketing. Young people, who learned T9 before long division, have no problem curling up with a good book. Sales of young adult lit remain high even in this economy. Why is it other than teenagers are the most passionate readers?

There are several reasons why so many teenagers are passionate readers. A book is a pathway inside another person’s head. When you are young, you have few deep relationships, maybe no real emotional connections with others at all. You connect in the text. At that age, it is a revelation to see an author has the same dreams and insecurities as you do. Plus, there is a confidence and conviction to a fiction narrative’s voice. You are eager for someone to look up to, but certainly not your parents, not your teachers. A novel is an opportunity to really listen to another human being.

The solitude, the sense of emotional connection, and the guidance of a novel are all appealing to teenagers who might otherwise busy themselves exclusively with videogames and the Internet. And it shows. For the most part, young adult sales continue to rise even while book publishing is experiencing a significant decline.

Industry experts will say sales reflect the new diversity in the young adult market. There is a Harry Potter gold rush of writers who might never otherwise consider the genre. These writers are pushing the boundries, introducing ideas and themes darker and wilder than ever before.

Certainly, the increasing quality of young adult books is a draw. But there are exceptional videogames, there are exceptional websites and exceptional television programs to fight for a teenager’s attention. So why are they still reading?

I think there is another reason why young adult novels are doing well, and it is less easy gauge. As of yet, there are no real studies determining this, but anecdotally, we all relate to it. A book is an opportunity to get “off the grid.” We read to break free of their digital tether. To experience what life was like before the net. To disconnect. To finally feel alone.

A book holds your hand in solitude and says, here you are alone in your room and everything is alright. You don’t need to call a friend or Twitter something. The world is still turning. If you go for a forty minute walk without your mobile, don’t worry, you’re not going to miss anything.

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I do recall many times when, as a teenager, I got lost in a book. It was much easier to do then; could happen with a snap of the fingers, in fact. Takes a bit more effort now, but I haven't lost it, yet. I hope I never do.