For as long as I can remember, I have always been an avid reader. In kindergarten, I was asked to read out loud for visiting parents touring the school (apparently that’s how private schools wooed new applicants) and from then on, I found myself in advanced reading classes. I was always reading. There is not a Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary book that I haven’t read, and you better believe that my future children will be reading those as well.

I think that I became such an avid reader because of the way I was raised. It was a rule in my house that TV would not be watched on school nights, and any show that we wanted to watch during the week would be recorded and watched on Friday afternoon after school. It didn’t matter if I had no homework or didn’t have a test to study for--the rule was the rule. This rule disbanded once I began to get older, but, for the most part, I still found myself choosing books over television.

And I am so happy that it was the rule. I will be forever grateful to my parents for instilling in me a love of books. But today, whenever I tell anyone roughly aged eight to 16 that I didn’t watch TV during the school week, or bring up an old, non-best-selling book, they stare at me either in awe or blankly. To them it seems almost impossible that I would want to read a book…for fun.

I came across this article about a month ago by The New Yorker, and it made me really sad. This article discusses the idea that for today’s teens reading has become a chore, as if it is equivalent to doing the dishes or doing laundry. It also highlights the idea that if reading is not seen as a chore, it is seen as just an activity. Reading to me is like jumping into a whole other world, immersing myself in the lives of the characters (probably a little too much), and letting the book become my world for the short time that I read it. But to these kids, it is equivalent to doing any other activity without meaning.

Nowadays, a lot of kids are embarrassed to say that they read for fun. And while "Harry Potter" and "The Hunger Games" are books, what I’m really talking about is those books that aren’t big time movies or best-sellers. It is depressing to think that reading for pure pleasure has been knocked down to almost nothing. I attribute this fall to both the rise of technology, especially with the iPhone, as well as the ridiculous amount of homework the schooling system gives, but that idea is for a whole other article (but if you’re interested in the schooling system and work levels, take a look at this documentary.)

Now, if you’re reading this as a fellow millennial and not relating to this at all, one, I feel bad for you and your deprived self, and two, I urge you to look at some statistics that prove that this is a very real and very frightening thing.

In 2014, Time Magazine posted an article on the decline of reading and concluded that 45 percent of 17-year-olds say they only read once or twice a year. OK, no big deal, right? Wrong. In 1984, 64 percent said they read once or twice a week.

Just let that sink in for a second.

I admit, I don’t read as much as I would like to, and I watch Netflix on school nights just as much as the next college student. With that being said, I urge everyone to read more. If you’re in middle school, college, or even an adult, I urge you to read. Find a genre or an author that you like, and commit yourself to reading one book, and then two, and so on. Reading isn’t meant to be stressful or boring, but rather it has the ability to bring you to life. Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourself.

Read a real book. Don’t use a Kindle or download a PDF. Go out to the last remaining bookstores and libraries and pick up a book, with pages that you can turn in your hand, and if you’re lucky you’ll find one with that classic old book smell.