Reading Habits Of The SMS Generation

In this excellent article, Sushila Ravindranath of New Indian Express writes about the reading habits of youth and the social issues that interest them:

Papers conduct their own readership surveys and the National Readership Survey published last year has also tried to figure out what the younger readership wants. The conclusions are far from clear. But from what I observe around me, some things are apparent. Let me also add that these are not scientifically researched conclusions. Strangely, as we are getting more and more globalised, we are also getting more and more local. Our preoccupations are about how bad our roads are, where we shop, where we eat, where we work out, and so on. This is possibly common to the young and the old. That’s why city supplements are becoming increasingly popular and get wider readership. Who reads the editorial pages? “Those who take IAS exams,” a young student enlightened me.

The younger lot is more technologically oriented. Most of them have access to the internet. The per capita internet usership is growing very fast. And the young are focused on the information they want. Which is actually a strange mix of local and global. Ask them (those living in the South) who the chief ministers of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are. See how many know or really care. But then all of them respect and trust our President Abdul Kalam. (Incidentally, many young people I talked to didn’t know the name of our Vice President!) To the young, the President is an embodiment of what can be achieved in this secular democratic country.

The young will read anything on the internet. More so, they get their information from their peers rather than from the press. That means from blogs. These blogs may not be objective bastions of news reportage, but they do speak to the youth in a way few mediums ever do. It’s like learning about the world or the country from one’s buddies.