Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Anishinai Park House. In this episode, we will talk about reading I Am Chanchini from the University of Arizona. And I am joined by Muhammad, a student from Yemen who presented this episode with him. And Muhammad, a student from Yemen who produced this episode.
Hi Muhammad, how are you doing? Hi Chance, I'm so glad to be here with you and very happy to be part of this episode. It's an important topic to talk about reading isn't chance. I agree.
Reading has so many benefits. I mean, I could think of so many, but I think when we first get in school as kids, you could think about reading as a first-name teacher from the alphabet to sentences, you know, to paragraphs, everything to reading big books. I think reading is just one of the valuable key points that all of us must have to be a functionalist society. Okay, that's true.
Chance, as you know, we are in the digital age and we spend a lot of time on social media and watching videos and movies. Can you tell me, please, is reading popular within young people and students in the United States? Yeah, Muhammad, you know, really social media had a really big impact on just really having to read anymore. You know, I could think of like, I mean, like my, for example, like myself, my reading habits, I've changed so much from out of the kid, you know, being in school, you read a book, you know, that's the only way you really like, you know, knew how to read.
But then once social media came out, we had these phones, tablets, laptops, there's so many different ways to read. And now we're constantly reading, but it's a different context. And technically, we still read on social media, but the days of having something in our hands, like physically reading, like a book, article, you know, a printout article, you know, those days are slowly fading away. Actually, they bring up the facts.
According to the Pew Research Center, about 83% adults in the world today use social media to read news, which is, you know, obviously it would be a big, drastic difference if you looked at like, you know, the 1980s and 1970s before social media, you know, really came on. And of course, this number is always only expected to go up with, you know, the right of social media and technology and newspapers slowly fading away. So yeah, I would say read is popular in the United States, but I would also say that is slowly fading away, Muhammad. It's wonderful when you see a lot of students or people read, you feel like the word is still fine.
Tell me a chance about you. When do you find your pleasure on social media or box? You know, I do find pleasure reading our social media, but at the same time, I am kind of old fashioned. I do like reading articles and I do like, you know, having the time to plot a book and read, you know, a nice narrative story or non-fiction story.
But you know, social media is also great for me to, you know, short term, you know, short format news and stuff like that. So that's what I would say, Muhammad. And I asked for Yemen, how is it like a Yemen in terms of like social media and reading? In Yemen, there are a lot of young people don't read and there are several reasons.
For example, they spend a lot of time on social media, even if there isn't a fast internet. Another reason the prices of box in Yemen are really, really expensive and the majority of Yemeni people are very bored. Also, sometimes people in Yemen want to read specific box and novels, but there are many difficulties to be available in the perry or the box shop. But that doesn't mean we never read.
There are many people in Yemen do because the first word Allah said to his messenger was read and when you visit many houses in Yemen, you will find a box shelf or a box case. Muhammad, that's really interesting hearing the Yemen perspective. I would have never guessed like the price of books, you know, being hired, you know, being really expensive, which is really weird because I find that interesting because here in the United States, I think the price of books have gone down and they're not very expensive. I think sometimes it'd be more expensive to read online actually here.
It's a very interesting topic, definitely. Keep in your mind, the majority of you are many people are poor and can't buy a box. Right, that makes sense, Muhammad. I'm glad that these days we do have the power of social media because there is a lot of other free books too that are available to read and different things like that.
So that is great. So now to switch gears a little bit, we're going to listen to some of our students from our projects. We ask them, do you prefer to learn something from books or watching tutorials as in like watching tutorials online or like virtually learning? I definitely prefer learning from watching videos or tutorials rather than just reading about it because it's easier and faster for me, but if there is a combination of both, I would do that because I really do enjoy reading.
I can't decide if I prefer reading a book or watching a movie more because I like doing both and it kind of depends on the situation. I think overall I like reading more, but movies are sometimes more convenient because I'm able to relax my brain and kind of take a break while watching them. For me, I prefer tutorial sessions, basically because you get the opportunity to share the knowledge of someone else who is maybe an expert in that field. Also you get to know many information which you don't know about.
Unlike if you're studying alone, for example, you won't be able to browse all the information that is being written in that book. To be honest, I like both. I feel like I'm very old fashioned when it comes to studying. I have to read things over and over again.
I have to highlight things, whether they're in the PDF or in my hands, but a lot of the times if I don't understand the subject from reading alone, I do seek out video tutorials and videos explaining the subject at hand because sometimes I am a visual learner, maybe it's better if I see somebody else explaining it and not just my brain trying to comprehend it. And reading on all of us is watching the movie. I like both, but I usually, especially when I was a kid, when it comes to, for example, let's say, watching the movie made up a book or reading the book, I would read the book and then I would watch the movie. But yeah, I like both.
But I guess I prefer reading the original source material when it comes down to it, most of the time. I really love learning from videos on YouTube or any kind of educational platforms. I find it easy to understand what I want to learn. On the other hand, books give lots and details, but I feel work sometimes.
I would definitely say I learn more by videos or by hearing someone walking you through a tutorial. It's definitely difficult to learn just by looking and reading a tutorial. I don't learn very well that way. Yeah, it is really difficult.
Yeah. So here are all those responses from our fellow partners, from our projects. I think that learning, it's really tough learning and watching videos and learning from that. I think just having a piece of paper in front of you and be able to learn, I think it's a lot easier personally, like Diana said, then having to learn online, it can be hard and it can be tough, not be able to hold in your hand, make marks.
You can still make marks online and edit and annotate papers, but it has a lot of challenges, especially when you're trying to read and understand our context. So I definitely agree with that. And I don't know how many of any thoughts about the responses we just heard. For me, I prefer to learn from video, but when I want to find my pleasure, I read books, not for learning just reading.
Right. Yeah. I definitely get that too. I think videos does have positives.
It does have a lot of things that are visually... It's visually your visual learner and you like the aspect of learning from technology and things like that. I think it definitely is a good tool. It is a very quick and affordable tool as well.
So moving on to our second box, Bob. The question is, what is your favorite book and what is it about? I prefer I'm an electronist books. He has a wonderful narration method and I learned many classical art with vocabulary by reading his books.
Also, Dan Brown's books, I found them very enthusiastic and full of ideas and theories to the point that I opened the internet search and understand more about things that mentioned in his books, even if I don't agree with and I'm accordingly reading the lost symbol of Dan Brown, it is about the US' habitual... It is called The Old Man of the Sea. It is written by Ernest Hemingway. He has written many books, actually, but I've only read this one because it was mandatory for me to do so in college.
So it's about the struggles that humans are going through and also it teaches you many lessons about life, how to be patient, how to be strong in getting something you really want, also teaches you how to be devoted to the work you are doing. We're Alone by Kristin Hannah. It's a historical fiction book and it's about a family that moves to the Alaskan wilderness in the 70s and all the struggles they face with their new environment and their relationships with one another. I really love Hannah's writing and how she so accurately captures and depicts the difficult emotions and situations that we all experience.
And there's a lot of action and adventure in the book, which I really enjoy. It makes me want to keep reading and not put it down. I love reading novels, which give information, all of the facts and so on. When I finish reading, I feel that there is a blindness of knowledge has been added besides the fun.
It means trilogy. The three books from the Hunger Games, my favorite one is Cashing Fire. I also love the movies. It's set in a dystopian world in the United States.
So the capital is where all the rich people are and they control the poor people. There's 12 districts and every year the capital, the rich people make every district send a boy and a girl each. So I'm told it's going to be 24 contestants, 12 boys and 12 girls from each district and they fight to the dev. So I'm going to be like a little timeline here.
So I'm going to say I have a lot of favorite books. I was a reader growing up. It makes sense about my journalist now. So I would say my favorite book was a child.
I remember like, Tenergarten hoping my first book was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. And I started getting to chapter books like my book Pico's books, the sports books, like Very Fiction, storytelling. And then I went from there and started reading bigger books like The Givers and Outsiders. I like a lot of books like that.
It has a really good story and interesting. You know, a book you can dive into and just gives a really good context from it and a really good narrative. So that's what I say, my favorite books and what about you, Muhammad, do you have any favorite books growing up or now? We are not in common chance, but I really like yours.
For me, I do have a lot of favorite books. My favorite books growing up where all the stories of children and where some magazines I really liked in my childhood like maggots. After that, I like the Jins novels and grew from their starting to like books like the introduction of Emgen Dune. Yeah.
And I could definitely relate on the magazine. I started reading magazines a little bit too. When I say like high school, like you know, different sports magazines, Forbes, The Rolling Stones. No, that's really interesting how magazines can grab a story of interest.
And other books too, I'm not familiar with, but they do sound amazing. I'm sure they're great books. That's a great chance. And I think I will read your favorite books in the future.
Thank you. Yeah. You should. They're a really good read.
I would definitely say Redfish Bluefish is a little childish, but I would say definitely the different outsiders are great books to read and I should definitely give them a read. And so to close out for today's episode, we have sincerely thank you all students from Arizona and Yemen for participating and answering our questions because without you, this wouldn't be possible. And we thank you for listening to our episode. Thanks a lot to Muhammad for being here today and thanks to Mahawah for producing this episode.
Thank you, Chance. It is my pleasure. We hope you enjoyed our learn something new today. We invite you to continue listening to the other guests' podcasts which will be published in the future.
Have a great day. Al Jazeera, the bridge is a collaboration among students and faculty from four public universities in Yemen and the faculty and students at the University of Arizona. They're participating in this nine-month Cultural Exchange Project in Yemen and the U.