Discursos alarmistas e soluções verticais: o hábito da leitura e outros modos de desencorajar jovens leitores.

Abstract

In the public space of encouraging reading, alarmist statements precede a simplistic and vertical solution: the imposition of reading as a habit, known in Brazil because it is repeated until exhaustion. In this study, we explored the theme of ―reading habit‖ by analyzing the considerations of different researchers for the debate. The most recurrent conception—that reading needs to become a habit of becoming assiduous in the lives of young people, making them readers—is opposed to views that question the idea of habit because it is itself opposed to the nature of reading, especially literary reading, which requires deviant attitudes that do not match the passivity and docility that such a notion arouses. Such views are based on the studies of Brito (2015), Perrotti (1999), Spohr (1997), Montes (2020), Petit (2013), Zilbermam (2009, 2012), Bertrand (2021), Andruetto (2017), among others. From the conclusions, we highlight that alarmist discourses and clichés about reading, when directed to spaces such as the school and other places of reception and circulation of literary text, end up distancing readers from what reading practices have been striving to bring closer, that is, to literature. Reading, when thought of and demanded as a habit, is a euphemism for the superficial and the opportunistic.