Reading Habits and Attitudes of Undergraduate Students: A Gender Based Comparative Study of Government Degree College (Boys) and Government Degree College for Women, Anantnag (J&K)

Reading habit is an essential and important aspect for crating the literate society in this world. It shapes the personality of an individual and it helps them to develop the proper thinking methods and creating new ideas.One of the main functions of library system at college level is to inculcate the reading habits among the students. Today\u27s students are the future citizens and also the nation builders of tomorrow. In present scenario, due to the influence of the social media and digital environment, students do not show much interest in reading the books, magazines and journals etc. The current study was carried out to investigate the disparity and dynamics of Reading Habits and Attitudes, also influence of social media on Reading Habits among the students of GDC (Boys) and GDC (Women). Based on the sample of 300 students, it was found that significant differences exist between the two groups of students in terms of types of reading material and reading resources used. Differences in reading habits and attitudes were also observed between male and female participants. The results clearly show that there is much disparity in reading habits and attitudes between the two genders. Social media and other digital media have greatly impacted the reading habits and Behaviour across the genders also