Carrick-on-Suir students investigate the reading habits of their generation

A group of students from Carrick-on-Suir's Comeragh College has completed a study into the reading habits of their generation. 

The project spearheaded by students Tadhg Sheehan, Aidan McGrath and Jennifer Long is called "To Investigate the Reading Habits of the New Generation" and it was selected to be showcased at the prestigious BT Young Scientist Exhibition in Dublin last month. 

A Comeragh College spokesperson said one member of the group reads a lot of books and prefers reading to scrolling through online. He enjoys a multitude of literary genres but mainly fantasy and wondered was there a difference in the genre preference nowadays compared to that of the previous generation. 

He said the students also felt social media has impacted on their lives and the way they think, so they were interested to see did it impact on the books and genres they choose to read compared to previous generations. 

"The students investigated this through a series of interviews and questionnaires. They found a few surprising results.

“Along with differences between the past and new generations in respect to book genre choice, the quantitative data showed a staggering 42.9% of students who answered the survey said that they did not read any books. 

"To Investigate the Reading Habits of the New Generation" was one of two projects from Comeragh College featured at this year's BT Young Scientist Exhibition.” 

The second project "The Theorem of Polynomials" was the work of  students Lughaidh McLoughlin, Shannon Blackmore and Timothy Innocent. 

They worked on developing a faster and more efficient way of calculating polynomial expressions. They conducted a series of calculations in order to make their formulae work.

The BT Young Scientist Exhibition participants are all members of Comeragh College's Science Club and their involvement in the 2BT Young Scientist Exhibition was assisted by sponsorship fro2m Quality Recycling.

Comeragh College Principal Kevin Langton said the school was very proud of the work the six Science Club students had done on their projects, their success in reaching the recent Young Scientist Exhibition and the good example they showed to younger students. 

  "It's a great achievement for the students, their families and their teachers. They are great role models for other students.” 

Mr Langton said this was the fourth year   Comeragh College was represented at the Young Scientist Exhibition.