Published Report | National Book Trust

This report addresses relatively little-known issue about the development of reading interests among the Indian youth, its causes and primary influences.  Information and results of the report is based on primary data generated through representative scientific approach which is consistent with global practice in readership research. The demographic profile of Indian youth, according to sex, age, level of education, occupation and other socio-economic characteristics has been prepared. How often, how much and what does today’s youth read? What types of reading materials do they generally seek? What are their preferences and interests with regard to reading subject matter? Why do they read and what are their attitudes towards reading? What were their motivations for reading? What are the conditions conducive for developing reading habits? How significant was the influence of reading role models and peers on reading habit formation? Do they read to acquire new skills and knowledge, or to improve existing talents? Do other sources of information like TV and internet affect reading habits? These are some of the important questions that are answered in the report along with other findings. It also attempted to gain insight into the media preferences of youth, level of trust in different media, personal satisfaction levels, reasons for dropping out of education, preferred leisure activities, most preferred genre of books for leisure reading, awareness about various government programmes, their perception/opinion about various critical issues such as reservations for women in Parliament, interest in science, religiosity, and so on.