The Bookstagram Phenomenon Boosts Reading Among Youth

What is the bookstagram phenomenon?

With the arrival of new technology in recent decades, the first platforms to encourage reading among youth were literary blogs. The impact these had on youth was so profound that other digital platforms began to follow suit.

However, Youtube was the first digital platform to manage to practically wipe out literary blogs altogether. And by doing so, it became the new world power when it came to motivating young people to read.

YouTube’s success lies in that these videos were created by young people themselves, which as a big draw. What’s more, the language used and the way they portrayed and recommended books also offered a major advantage. For all of these reasons, booktubers enjoyed great success, and continue to be successful today.

However, social media continued to evolve and another social media platform was quick to attract the attention of our youth. So, while Youtube still stands out as a favorite, Instagram has also made its way to the top of the list.

This new social media platform is different from YouTube in that it doesn’t consist only of videos. Rather, it consists mainly of photos and images. So, as Instagram grew in popularity, bookstagrammers came into existence, encouraging reading through the images they post.

What characteristics does this new way of promoting reading possess?

The publications that bookstagrammers post on Instagram consist of carefully created photographs of books. And, for the most part, they include details about the book itself in order to attract readers.

So, what’s the biggest advantage that Instagram has over YouTube when it comes to motivating young people to read? Instagram allows for a much faster and more familiar interaction between users than YouTube. So, it makes it possible for users with the same or similar tastes to recommend titles that everyone else can see.

In fact, these kinds of interactions are the basis of this photographic social media platform. So, the bookstagram phenomenon refers to all of the interactions that will take place around books and reading… Interactions where users can talk about different books, literary themes, authors, characters, and more.

Another element that stands out when it comes to Instagram is the use of hashtags (#). While hashtags were born out of Twitter, they now play a major role in Instagram. They allow publications to reach a much larger audience, which, in general, is interested in the publication’s content. So, when users add the #bookstagram hashtag to their posts, they automatically reach users around the world that are interested in reading.

Bookstagram: The importance of keeping up with the times

As we said at the beginning of this post, preteens and teenagers are the least likely age group to read a book. So, it’s important to find new ways to motivate them to take an interest in reading. And that means keeping up with the times and being aware of important movements like the bookstagram phenomenon. The benefits of reading are infinite, and we need to make sure our youth don’t miss out.