Why Teenagers Read Better Than You

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Renée Green, Partially Buried in Three Parts, 1996/97 (via Artdaily)

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.

Previously: New Media in Fiction: Will There Ever Be an “iPhone Novel”?

Update 6/23/09: Paul Raven has a smart response “are we confusing marketing with markets” on Futurismic: “This is a mantra we heard over and over again during the massive YA genre fiction circle-jerk last year, and it’s always backed with the unvoiced assumption that only Young Adults read YA. I’ve worked in a library, and I can assure you that’s an observable falsehood; most genuinely popular YA is successful precisely because so many adult readers with an expendable income enjoy the same titles… I have no beef with YA fiction, or with those who choose to write it, or those who choose to read it. What I do have an issue with is the assumption that by marketing certain books as being for young adults we can treat their success as indicators of health in young adult reading specifically. The pedestal-mounting of YA as the saviour of modern fiction is dangerously misguided.”

Posted by Joanne on Jun. 20, 2009 Tagged: , , ,

  • otolythe
    great observations! yes to less busy, more space.

    I think YA's also read to practice world-building, that infusion of the virtual that is so inseparable from the real. in novels you can try out different systems as thought experiments - but in running those scenarios you start building up the world you will eventually grow into, as both character and author.
  • alicerene
    How nice to hear that YA book are sky-rocketing in sales. I didn't think any kind of books were doing that great. By chance my memoir, Becoming Alice, seems to be heading into the YA direction. Hope to have a couple of reviews on line soon. In the meantime, http://alicerene.com, will have to do.
  • Herb1635
    Another aspect contributing to YA reading: a low cost of time. The value of YA time is low relative to A time. As not only have jobs and ways to earn income, they have high valued roles in households and in leisure, such as reading book to the siblings of YAs. With lower time values, YA are free to splurge on reading books.
  • ok, where can I obtain a copy of this book? sound like there could be tons of reading awaits... :D
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