Page 94 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.45, 2019

LI Guihua & LIU Jing / Transition: Adolescents’ hybrid reading in the omnimedia era 093

time. Especially high-engaged hybrid readers’ reading attitude is the most positive. In other words,
hybrid reading behavior has a significant effect on the improvement of reading enthusiasm among
young adults.

6.2 Research implications

Technological progress will not be reversed, and the shift in reading behavior is a historical
necessity. The transformation of young adults from traditional reading to hybrid reading shows us
a new picture of the reading society. Reading promotion researchers and practitioners should face
up to this change.
In the first place, the rise of hybrid reading shows that the digital reading environment and the
traditional reading environment are not opposite. On the contrary, a new type of deep reading has
been formed. It’s time to build the fusion reading environment based on the composite dimension.
In the digital age, the society is facing a “reading crisis” (Ase, 2014), and its essence is a “deep
reading crisis” (National Endowment for the Arts, 2004). Deep reading is a kind of reading
behavior which has high degree of participation and happens when the readers’ mental ability
of the organism and the appropriate conditions of the reading object meet. However, traditional
reading is not the only way to achieve deep reading (G.H. Li, 2017; F.J. Li, & G.H. Li, 2017). The
young adults’ hybrid reading behavior described in this study shows that readers will actively or
passively obtain reading target information through multiple channels, and are willing to share
their progress and ideas in reading stage, and then use a variety of new media channels to extend
reading in post-reading stage. They develop a more positive reading attitude in this process. These
phenomena mean that hybrid reading behavior has reached a high level in the three aspects of
reading participation (behavioral participation, emotional participation, cognitive participation).
Therefore, it is a new type of deep reading. As the builder of reading environment, the library
should examine this new reading situation with historical perspective, change the traditional, single
and linear service channel, construct a multi-channel fusion reading service platform, stimulate the
reader’s demand and cognition of all aspects of reading activities, and finally lead the reader’s read
behavior to a beneficial transformation.
Secondly, the division of the level of young adults’ hybrid reading means the existence of the
“reading gap” in the new period. The reading promotion activities should segment the reading
groups and refine the activity design. In so doing, demands of readers at different levels of reading
can be better satisfied and the reading gap be bridged accordingly.
This survey shows that compared with traditional reading young adult readers, the other three
types of hybrid reading young adults read completely. They are more inclusive about the reading
vector, having greater reading interest, frequency and time. In other words, some young adults
may have a reading gap with other young adults because they are unable to access and enjoy
technological advances, or because of their own media literacy problems. Based on this, China’s