Sometimes what starts out as an enjoyable hobby can end up morphing your mind. Harmlessly, readers enjoy books to escape their own lives and experience a world full of thrills and romance. By opening social media, you are likely faced with a never-ending stream of devastating news stories and posts from people the same age as you, but somehow much more successful. Given the conditions of social media, reading, a hobby confined only to the pages of a book, is less overwhelming.
Enjoying a fantastical world instead of facing your own is easier. Since reading is a hobby commonly seen as “productive”, it’s rising in popularity among teenagers and young adults, turning to paper and ink for entertainment. Because scrolling leaves the user so empty, reading, a practice that aims to expand the mind of the reader through words alone, seems like a better option.
The problem with reading, as with every good thing, is taking it too far. The words that fill a reader’s mind inevitably begin to shape it. If these words are philosophical or educational, the reader begins to learn, question, and expand their beliefs. However, books filled with sweeping romance and adventurous journeys lead readers to compare the lives of fictional characters with their own.
Reading about love can lead readers to project their own lives onto fictional characters and base their fulfillment on what happens in the story. Readers begin to imagine not only the characters they read about, but also insert themselves into the worlds that exist only on paper.
Princes in books are different from princes in reality. Prince William didn’t throw balls to find a wife and search entire villages to find a foot that matches a shoe a maiden left. Although romance is very real and very alive, it doesn’t look the same as it does in books.
Junior Abby Haddad said, “I think sometimes romance books can create a false reality of what people think love is. Although it can be a really fun time and make you feel butterflies, it can also be negative because people aren’t really like that in real life. It’s just fiction.”
The people portrayed in romance novels are idealized versions of real people. A romantic heroine or knight in shining armor is difficult to find in the 21st century. Romantic leads are projected to have the best, most attractive traits, which is impossible for real people to uphold. Every human is flawed, no matter how much we try not to be, and the perfection seen in fictional characters is unfair to project on people you date in reality.
Although romance books can portray unrealistic standards for love, some depictions of love have helped students in their love lives.
Senior Evynn Domenech said, “Reading romance books has impacted my love life by setting what my standards are in love. Reading books gives me another world that I can fall in love with whenever the real world feels like it’s falling apart.”
Although most books aren’t terribly realistic, their effect of creating idealized worlds can also help readers. For many, romance books are the first exposure to relationships and love. Domenech continues, “I would be completely clueless on how anything in a relationship works. [reading romance books] really helped me.”
Having high standards, within reason, is a good thing. We can’t expect to find a prince at a ball, but losing all standards results in being dissatisfied in a romantic relationship and feeling just as lonely as not being in one. Maybe romance novels aren’t entirely accurate, but the joy that stories have brought to readers will always win over doomscrolling.