Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Millennials Do Not Read


I personally feel that millennial students/Gen-Yers do not read. After conducting research, another source agrees (Sweeny, 2005).

However, I feel that I am one of the outliers when examining this subject. Since the age of eight, I have read the Sunday newspaper from cover to cover EVERY Sunday morning. Currently, I live right outside of a large city and I am able to get the local and regional Sunday newspapers.

As I stated in the beginning, I feel that I am outside of the norm. My students do not READ newspapers and consequently they do not know what is happening around them. This year, I have started my class with an icebreaker pertaining to the news. I ask the students a question about the election, the obesity problem in Mississippi, the Grammys, the Super bowl or ANYTHING that focuses the status quo. I post the question about current events to the students, most of them look at me with a blank stare. However, there are some students who started reading the news after I began this current event icebreaker.

I am a BIG advocate of the NAA College Readership program, which supplies the students, faculty and staff with newspapers that are available across campus. Personally, I think that this program is VERY underutilized by all of the students, faculty and staff on campus. Some days I walk by the newsstands on campus and there are still MANY newspapers that were not taken during the day.


Sweeney, R. T. (2005) Reinventing library buildings and services for the millennial
generation, Library Administration and Management. 19(4), 165-75.


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