The vanishing habit

Once a cherished daily ritual, reading today stands on the margins of our hurried lives. From children flipping through storybooks under dim lamps to adults absorbed in newspapers or novels, the image once defined learning, leisure, and imagination. That image, sadly, is fast fading.
The reasons are not difficult to see. The digital deluge has replaced pages with screens. For children, bedtime tales are increasingly swapped for YouTube videos, reels, and addictive gaming apps. Adults, meanwhile, claim to “read” through fragmented news snippets on social media, mistaking scrolling for engagement. The patience to sit with a book and follow an argument or story has given way to the restless flick of thumbs. The consequences of this decline are profound. Reading is not merely about literacy-it builds concentration, empathy, and the ability to think critically. When children grow up without reading habits, they risk becoming passive consumers of content rather than active interpreters of ideas. For adults, the retreat from books has hollowed out public discourse. A generation that does not read is prone to shallow opinions, polarised thinking, and susceptibility to misinformation.
Ironically, the same technology blamed for killing reading has also democratised access to it. E-books, online libraries, and audiobooks are now available at the click of a button. Yet, abundance has not translated into engagement. It is not the absence of material but the loss of discipline that has eroded the culture. Reading requires time, silence, and solitude- commodities increasingly treated as luxuries.
Parents and schools cannot escape responsibility. Academic pressure has reduced reading to a chore-textbooks for marks, reference material for exams. Storytelling, literature, and imaginative exploration have been sidelined. At home, parents too often model screen addiction instead of reading, leaving children with few role models for this vanishing habit.
The revival of reading culture must therefore be deliberate. Schools need to create spaces for reading beyond curriculum, where books are companions and not burdens. Public libraries, largely abandoned, should be reimagined as vibrant community hubs. At the family level, small acts-bedtime reading, digital detox hours, and shared book discussions can restore the intimacy of books. Most importantly, society must revalue reading not as an old-fashioned pastime, but as the foundation of thoughtful citizenship.
Vijay Garg, Retired
Principal.
Educational
columnist, eminent
educationist