Wen \ Three Niang
Have you read a book this spring?
23 April, another year of World Book Day. In the fast-paced contemporary society, people who are wrapped in countless messages have become more and more rare to have time to sit down and read a book.
However, due to the repeated impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, people have more time at home and alone this spring; a recent topic called #Reading makes you better off has been on Weibo hot search, under which the highest likes answer came from a young college student -
When a paper book is held in your hand, away from the Internet, TV and mobile phones, the whole person becomes calmer.
One visible megatrend is that more and more young people are choosing to return to long reading to combat anxiety and uncertainty than the anxiety caused by the fragmented information of addicted mobile phones.
In the newly released 2022 "More Reading Month" spring book list, "Gray Rhinoceros", which depicts the risk of uncertainty, made it to the list. Compared with other works such as novels and poetry collections that meet the expectations of emotional reading, this financial book written by a world-renowned economist on the list actually has a certain reading threshold. This is enough to prove that the people who read books themselves already have a considerable level of economic reading cognition and hope to fight anxiety about the future through reading.
According to the data of the "2021 More Reading Report", the growth rate of social science economics and management books in the university campus has reached a new high; more and more young people from first- and second-tier cities regard "spelling" as a living habit, and the trend of book consumption users is obvious. At the same time, the data also shows that in 2021, compared with the first quarter, in the second quarter of the "More Reading Month", the order volume of readers after 95 increased by 62.5% year-on-year, and the order volume after 00 increased by 58% year-on-year.
Who would have thought that seeking solace in books is becoming a trendy choice for young people in this era.
01 Return to the era of reading
For a long time, our market has been able to hear the voice of "young people no longer read".
Indeed, mobile short videos and mobile games are constantly eroding the attention of young people. According to the previous survey statistics of the relevant institutions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the proportion of contemporary college students browsing short videos is as high as 83%, of which 56% are heavily dependent, 34% are moderately dependent, and only 2% are independent individuals who exist outside of mobile short videos.
But today, things may be changing.
Recently, there is a news that has attracted everyone's attention: compared with the previous pursuit of popular new machines, contemporary young people are reluctant to change their mobile phones.
At the same time, in the Weibo and Little Red Books gathered by young people, compared with the previous "new machine", how to save the wool of genuine books has become a new popular chopper note content.
Some bloggers posted on Weibo, "When is the month of reading more!" April 23 is World Book Day! You hurry up for me"; and the blogger roared and said, "pdd hurry up and get me more reading months, I hope you don't know how to lift"...
"About me spent 60 to buy 7 books in Pindu", then became a small sweet potato chopper note.
Another little sweet potato gave a complete shopping guide - "Read more books for a hundred million points of attention".
But the experience of chopping hands is actually just a small classification of the many "reading notes" of these young people. Regarding reading, Little Red Book has 2.19 million+ reading notes. Netizen "Light Boat Reading", posted a reading note ""Mountain Moon Chronicle" | you are obviously not willing to be mediocre, but do not want to make progress", receiving 86,000 likes, 55,000 collections and 470 comments. "Hazel in Reading" netizens posted reading notes "2021 35th Book - Inferiority and Transcendence", with 45,000 likes, 22,000 collections and 432 comments. There is also a "briseis reading" netizen, who wrote "When I was a book blogger for half a year, I achieved 'paper book freedom'", which also had 12,000 likes, 11,000 collections and 418 comments.
In the well-known group of Douban, which gathered 598826 users, "buy books like mountains and read like silk", an article of "about the opening time of the reading month, bold speech" was on top of the hot, and when the reading month opened, the Wenqing also took out the "fierce energy" of consumption - "Sisters, open up!" In another set of topics, a Doubaner said, "Suddenly A little bit of anticipation of reading more months!!! Originally I only remembered Kim Dong-er dang, saw the post of last year in the group, so excited. ”
From Weibo and Little Red Book to Douban, the material world and spiritual corners of young people have begun to leave a place for books.
Reading is recognized as the most convenient way to increase knowledge and experience, alleviate anxiety and confusion, and young people should read more books and become an Internet buzzword that often appears in memes and daily conversations. Countries have racked their brains to persuade young people to read more, such as the United Kingdom's launch of the subway book loss action, and the United States promulgated the "No Child Left Behind" law, but the effect is limited. So, what should we do to make young people read more and read better?
The attempt of e-commerce platforms and the sharing of social platforms that gather young people may provide another way to solve the problem - perhaps using social fission and activity promotions to enhance young people's sense of participation is the best way to truly enhance young people's enthusiasm for reading.
02 Change the "theory that reading is useless"
But in fact, the young people who pay for books are not only college students in first- and second-tier cities.
In markets outside the mainstream spotlight, the way young people consume is also changing.
Previously, the "theory of the uselessness of reading" was very popular in rural areas. Two years ago, a reporter raised a question about the "useless theory of reading" that has become popular in rural areas in recent years, and Zheng Fuzhi, vice minister of education, responded to this. He admits that the "theory of the uselessness of reading" is indeed popular in some less developed areas, which is an objective and realistic problem, and if parents believe that letting their children go to school will not allow them to access better jobs and live a better life, they will naturally question the cost-effectiveness of reading.
Indeed, for less developed regions, reading is a time- and costly high-investment project. According to a survey conducted by the China Institute of Philanthropy of Beijing Normal University, in rural schools in Guizhou, Sichuan, Shanxi, Henan, Yunnan and other places, more than 71% of respondents said that the family collection was less than 10 books, and nearly 20% of the children did not have a single book at home.
Therefore, the best way to change this wrong idea is to lower the cost threshold of reading. In addition to the efforts of government departments, it also needs to be promoted by the relay of social forces.
Since early April 2021, Pinduoduo has launched the "Reading for You" public welfare donation action. The first stop started from Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, to Hubei, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Guizhou, Yunnan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan and other provinces, and continued to launch the "Reading for You" public welfare donation to primary and secondary school students in remote areas, and has donated more than 100,000 books so far.
Donation is only a part, whether you can use the logic of marketization to truly remove the threshold of reading, is the long-term solution to break the "theory of the uselessness of reading".
And from the data, this road has indeed worked. According to the "2021 Duoduo Reading Report", Guangdong, Shandong and Henan ranked among the top three regions with the largest number of "Spelling Books" orders; among the regions with the largest year-on-year growth rate of "Spelling Books" orders, Liaoning, Shanghai and Beijing ranked in the top three, and Tibet and Guangxi ranked among the top ten. Among them, during the two quarters of the "More Reading Month" activities, the book order volume and book transaction volume from rural areas increased by more than 154% year-on-year, and the book order volume and book transaction volume from rural primary and secondary schools increased by more than 110% year-on-year.
Huang Tingjian of the Song Dynasty once said: "If people do not read, one day they are dusty, the second day is abominable in the mirror, and the third day is tasteless to people's speech." In the Chinese civilization that advocates "cultivating and reading heirlooms", in fact, reading has always been highly respected.
In the final analysis, the prevalence of "reading useless theory" in previous years is essentially a kind of utilitarian thinking in the era of shortage, hoping to make the early investment in children achieve the fastest monetary utilitarian return; but today, when the threshold for reading is continuously lowered, more people have a more inclusive and closer opportunity to read books and obtain the nutrition of books, and there is naturally no market for reading uselessness.
Read through the spring
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