Naiare Rodríguez Pérez
Zaragoza, May 4 (EFE) .- In a world saturated with immediate screens and stimuli, where attention seems to last what a click, the image of a teenager who reads for pleasure might seem strange. However, young people not only read, but each time they do more and share it with enthusiasm and criteria in social networks.
Tiktok, YouTube or Instagram have revitalized interest in reading among new generations thanks to the work of the ‘booktokers’, creators of content that recommend and value books in vertical videos of short duration and without artifice.
The Zaragoza Andrea Izquierdo, @andrearowling in social networks, exceeds 100,000 followers and is one of the most recognized faces. “I started as a spectator of what was then Booktube, which was YouTube and book. Upon discovering this world, I thought I could also do videos,” he details in an interview with EFE.
Since then, its account has not stopped growing and, with it, the diversity of readers who follow it, from adolescents to adults over 50 years.
A similar story is that of Patricia García, @littleredread, who remembers how her path began in 2012, when “he did not have a reading environment of friends” and was “eager” to meet other people with whom to share his passion.
Both are an example of how reading has found a new house on social networks, a reality that support the figures, since, according to data from the reading and purchase habits barometer of books in Spain (2023), 75.3 % of young people between 14 and 24 years declare reading in their free time.
In 2024, in fact, more than 77 million copies were sold in Spain, which Andrea comments as something “very significant and good” that shows that “young people do read a lot and have a lot of passion.” “In the signatures or days of the book, most ranks are formed by young people,” he says.
Therefore, stereotypes and the phrase that “young people do not read in Spain” are nothing more than a wrong way of talking about the new generations, which have proven to be up to date with literary tendencies and consume this type of content in which the form and closeness in which it is recommended or spoken is also.
“People connect with people. The video format allows you to see how you express yourself, how you transmit emotion and passion for something,” explains Patricia, while Andrea says that “the key is to speak and use the same language as you would use with your friends drinking coffee.”
But this new way of living reading also has shadows, such as the pressure to read quickly, the need to have the bookcase full of books or anxiety to be up to date.
“Sometimes I have been able to feel that they became a competition to see who had or read more books. That is why it is important to stop and remember why you started,” says Andrea.
Meanwhile, Patricia admits that “dozens of new stories come out every week, but everything depends on how you take this work and the community.” “Reading fast or slowly does not influence reading experience,” he warns.
That authenticity and honesty is the pillar of work, because, according to Andrea, “you cannot lie to the audience and say that you have loved a book that you have not even read.” “Our responsibility is to be honest so that people can identify and fully understand your tastes as a reader,” adds Patricia.
Although there is no exact number of ‘booktokers’ in Spain, there are some profiles that demonstrate its proper functioning, such as @pacohdez77, which exceeds 4.1 million followers, or @Victoria.resco, with 61.9 million I like you in Tiktok.
The diversity of genres that triumph in social networks are the ‘romantasy’, the ‘Dark Romance’, or even marginal genres such as the ‘Cowboy Romance’. However, as Patricia emphasizes, what works “will always be books that respond to market trends with important marketing campaigns.” Andrea clarifies that “the book that goes viral is a bit.”
In fact, one of the most common criticisms of this new ‘boom reader is the alleged lack of “serious literature”, a debate that both reject and consider that “hurts.” “It seems that youth or romantic literature is not worth the same as the historical or general narrative. It is an archaic thought,” Garcia shares.
Regarding the perception that young people have of reading, although it indicates that the mandatory readings of the classroom “have nothing to do with the readings that a young man does out,” Andrea does detect a change in educational centers, where Eloy Moreno, David Lozano or Blue Jeans are already beginning to read books.
“I think there is a difference between creating readers and studying literature. They are compatible from my point of view,” he values left, to which Garcia adds that “reinforcing reading outside the power classroom that those classics take, which are very different from what they are accustomed to reading, otherwise.”
Despite the growing concern of writers for the emergence of artificial intelligence and the immediacy that social networks claim, Patricia recognizes that “the future of promotion of literature among young people will be where young people are.”
Either from the screen of a mobile or in libraries, everything indicates that the books will continue to find their place to demonstrate that reading is still alive and that the only thing that has changed has been the way of consuming it. EFE
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