Ashmita Badoni is a content writer and contributes to various media websites. Ashmita specialises in writing content about event planning, book reviews, higher education and early childhood education. Along with this, she is also a student of Folklore and Cultural Studies.
Teens are afflicted with texting anxiety. They overthink not receiving a response within ten minutes of sending a text message. This is even more acute, given that whatsapp shows you that the message has been read.
American author James Baldwin expressed this best, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
So what changes when we read? Teenagers who act in drastic ways in response to small pressures would be wise to try ‘bibliotherapy’ at a neighborhood bookstore. In fact, a recent study at Emory University has shown that novel reading enhances connectivity in the brain as well as improving brain function.
“Reading is extremely important,” says Nidhi Gupta who’s part of Agarwal Business House, the new owners of Crossword Bookstores. “It has been well-documented that reading is umbilically related to the human need to make sense of the world, the desire to understand and to make connections. Every reader sub-consciously tries to make a ‘plot work’- by linking what has happened, to what is expected to happen. To find ‘resonance’ with a character’s suffering or joy, promotes empathy, understanding and emotional development. It also takes patience to reach the page where the plot opens up.”
Clearly, patience, emotional development and empathy are essential, not optional qualities. Well known author Sudha Murty has always maintained, “ all I want is that children should read them as it would expand their horizons.”
Reading is the panacea to most things that ail teenagers, need for external validation, anxiety, social image, acceptance- can be remedied in the pages of a book. And sometimes, the best medicine is to learn to laugh at your own problems; through the pages of a book. It helps you gain perspective and be more balanced.
So the next time you catch yourself going into a frenzy because someone has ignored your text message, pick up a book and move on.