Writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has suggested that young people give up social media for about two weeks or more to grow the habit of reading as it is the only way to counter the spree of book banning in the United States of America.
She made this suggestion when she received the W.E.B Du Bois Medal from Harvard University on Thursday.
“The most meaningful thing for me as a writer is to know that I can create something that means something to other people. And so what moves me the most is to hear from people who have read me and who say, your work made me feel seen, your work made me think differently, your work made me feel that I was not alone.
“For the young people who are here, if you care about anything, please care about reading, reading is so important, reading is magical, books are magical. And I really think that one of the best ways to counter what seems to me to be a really ugly tsunami of book bannings going around in this country is to read. The only way that we can answer to censorship of books is to read books,” she said.
On giving up social media for books, Adichie said, “And so for you young people, I just want to make a very small suggestion, how about you give up social media for you know, two weeks, three weeks, a month, and read, read, read.”