Impact of social media on the reading habits of government senior secondary school students in North district of Directorate of Education, Delhi

The present study explores the pervasive influence of social media on reading habits of government senior secondary school students of Delhi. Out of total 399 respondents, female students (57.4%), Class XI students (52.4%) and students from Arts stream (70.4%) predominantly form the majority of demography. The study reveals a high level of awareness and usage in social media tools like WhatsApp (87.28% awareness, 77.81% usage), YouTube (83.21% awareness, 79.90% usage) and Instagram (75.83% awareness, 60.31% usage) etc. While the social networking sites have the highest level of both awareness (70.93%) and usage (61.90%) among respondents, video sharing and streaming platforms are also popular along with. Despite the popularity of social networking sites, majority of the respondents access Facebook (115 respondents), Twitter (44 respondents), LinkedIn (34 respondents) and Email (71 respondents) rarely. Students primarily use social media for learning and socialization purposes. Apart from facilitating information retrieval, social media also poses distractions, leading to reduced reading habits and hindering in-depth study.