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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
A phone fixation may seem at odds with an attraction to books. But the latter may offer a much-needed reprieve from the former.
In our recent study of American Gen Z and millennials, we discovered that 92% of them check social media daily; 25% of them check multiple times per hour.
Yet in that same nationally representative study, we also found that Gen Z and millennials are still visiting libraries at a healthy clip, with 54% of Gen Zers and millennials trekking to their local library in 2022.
Our findings reinforce 2017 data from the Pew Research Center, which showed that 53% of millennials had gone to their local library over the previous 12 months. By comparison, that same study found that 45% of Gen Xers and 43% of baby boomers visited public libraries.
So why might Gen Z and millennials – sometimes characterized as attention-addled homebodies – still see value in trips to the public library?
A preference for print
We found that Gen Zers and millennials prefer books in print over e-books and audiobooks, even though their other favorite reading formats are decidedly digital, such as video game chats and web novels. American Gen Zers and millennials read an average of two print books per month – nearly double the average for e-books or audiobooks, according to our data.
The preference for print also manifests itself in the types of books Gen Z and millennials are borrowing and buying: 59% said they prefer the same story in graphical or manga format than in text only.
And while some graphic novels, comics and manga can be read on a screen, print is where these intricately illustrated books truly shine.
Beyond reading
We were most surprised by our finding that 23% of Gen Zers and millennials who don’t identify as readers nonetheless visited a physical library in the past 12 months.
It’s a reminder that libraries don’t just serve as a repository for books. Patrons can record podcasts, make music, craft with friends or play video games. There are also quiet spaces with free Wi-Fi, perfect for students or people who work remotely.
Younger generations tend to be more values driven than older ones, and libraries’ ethos of sharing seems to resonate with Gen Zers and millennials – as does a space that’s free from the insipid creep of commercialism. At the library, there are no ads and no fees – well, provided you return your books on time – and no cookies tracking and selling your behavior.
U.S. census data also shows that younger generations are more racially diverse than older generations.
Our survey found that 64% of Black Gen Zers and millennials visited physical libraries in 2022, a rate that’s 10 percentage points higher than the general population. Meanwhile, Asian and Latino Gen Zers and millennials were more likely than the general population to say that browsing library shelves was a preferred way to discover new books.
A crucial moment for libraries
Though libraries have been forced to reckon with book bans and the politicization of public spaces, Gen Zers and millennials still see libraries as a kind of oasis – a place where doomscrolling and information overload can be quieted, if temporarily.
Perhaps Gen Zers’ and millennials’ library visits, like their embrace of flip phones and board games, are another life hack for slowing down.
Printed books won’t ping you or ghost you. And when young people eventually log back on to their devices, books make excellent props for #BookTok, the community on TikTok where readers review their favorite books.
Kathi Inman Berens, Associate Professor of Book Publishing and Digital Humanities, Portland State University and Rachel Noorda, Associate Professor of Publishing, Portland State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
Each year, Thompson honors law enforcement officers and first responders in our community who have gone above and beyond the call of duty.
“Our first responders and law enforcement are the first line of defense for our communities and work to keep us safe. Our district is home to outstanding public safety officials who go above and beyond in their service, and I am proud to recognize them each year as Public Safety Heroes,” said Thompson.
“Officer Eagle and Captain Valadez are outstanding individuals who are dedicated to serving Lake County, and I am proud to recognize their commitment to service,” Thompson added.
Clearlake Police Officer Daniel Eagle
Eagle was born in Clearlake and grew up in Lake County, graduating from Middletown High School in 2013.
He attended college in New Mexico where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice management.
From an early age, Eagle had the desire to become a police officer and to help our community.
Today, at the Clearlake Police Department, Eagle serves as a police officer, field training officer, and canine handler. He has been with his canine partner, Zeus, for several years now.
Eagle is also the president of the Police Officer Association and enjoys working with local leaders on community improvement projects.
He has a passion for traffic enforcement and investigations. This includes infractions such as driving under the influence, or DUI, stolen vehicles, and traffic collisions.
Eagle has conducted numerous DUI investigations which resulted in the prosecution of over 25 DUI arrests. For his selfless work, Mr. Eagle received an award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 2023. Eagle was also presented with the Law Enforcement and Prosecution Recognition award.
His dedication to the community continues as he strives to address traffic related issues within the city of Clearlake, making it a safer place to live, work and visit.
“Officer Eagle is an example of what it means to keep our community safe, and through his work in traffic enforcement and investigations, he has made Lake County a better place,” Thompson said.
Northshore Fire Protection Capt. Chrissy Valadez
Chrissy Valadez began her career in 2003 with Lucerne Fire Department which consolidated and formed Northshore Fire Protection District in 2006. She has served as Northshore Fire Protection District’s EMS Liaison since 2007.
She is also a part of the Lake County Emergency Medical Care Committee and has been a field training officer precepting paramedic interns since 2008.
Having worked for nearly 21 years in Lake County, she has assisted in many of the major wildfires, including the 2018 Ranch Fire that devastated the community.
Valadez teaches CPR to a wide range of community members including high school students and school staff. She’s also been educating community and tribal organizations on Narcan administration, tackling the opioid crisis head-on.
As the driving force behind the Every 15 Minutes program at Upper Lake High School, she has been helping students understand the dangers of driving under the influence.
Valadez is currently finishing her bachelor’s degree in science education with an end goal of teaching health science and emergency medical services to high school students.
“Capt. Valadez goes above and beyond to serve our community in Lake County through trainings on the opioid crisis, the dangers of drunken driving, CPR education, and EMS services to high school students,” Thompson said.
The full list of Public Safety Heroes for the Fourth Congressional district includes:
Daniel Eagle, Clearlake Police Department
Chrissy Valdez, Northshore Fire Protection
Nick DeGuilio, Napa County Sheriff’s Office
JC Greenburg, Cal Fire
Lauren Coughlan, Vacaville Police Department
Andrew Tomelloso, Dixon Fire Department
Debbie Lamaison, Rohnert Park Police Department
Santa Rosa Maui Recovery Team
Ghost, Santa Rosa Police Department K9
Joe Farrow, UC Davis Police Department
Clarksburg Fire Protection District
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The council will meet Tuesday, Jan. 16, at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
The agenda can be found here.
The council chambers will be open to the public for the meeting. Masks are highly encouraged where 6-foot distancing cannot be maintained.
If you cannot attend in person, and would like to speak on an agenda item, you can access the Zoom meeting remotely at this link or join by phone by calling toll-free 669-900-9128 or 346-248-7799.
The webinar ID is 973 6820 1787, access code is 477973; the audio pin will be shown after joining the webinar. Those phoning in without using the web link will be in “listen mode” only and will not be able to participate or comment.
Comments can be submitted by email to
The meeting will start off with a proclamation designating January as Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
On Tuesday’s agenda, the council will be asked to consider an agreement with Bob Hall and Associates for the executive recruitment of a new chief of police and approve a budget amendment in the amount of $27,000 for the expenditure.
Police Chief Brad Rasmussen intends to retire this fall. He’s also running for the District 4 supervisorial seat.
The council also will hold a study session on retail storefront cannabis businesses and temporary cannabis events and consider whether or not Lakeport should permit such operations and events.
“If City Council elects to permit retail storefront cannabis businesses and/or temporary cannabis events staff would come back to the Planning Commission at a future date with a draft ordinance for review. Once the prospective draft ordinance(s) are reviewed by the Planning Commission, staff will bring the item back to City Council for further review and potential action,” Community Development Director Joey Hejnowicz wrote in his memo to the council.
In other business, on the agenda is a presentation from the Lake County Water Resources Department regarding the “Clear Lake Integrated Preparedness and Resilience Plan for Dreissenid Mussel Management: A Rapid Response and Transition to Containment Plan.”
Rasmussen will ask the council for a five-year contract extension for the Automated License Plate Reader cameras, there will be a presentation of the first quarter financials update and the council will consider adopting a resolution appointing representatives to represent and vote on behalf of the City at the League of California Cities, Redwood Empire Division Business meetings and represent the City and vote at Division Legislative Committee meetings.
On the consent agenda — items considered noncontroversial and usually accepted as a slate on one vote — are ordinances; minutes of the City Council’s regular meeting on Dec. 19; approval of application SCC2023-002, with staff recommendations, for the street closure at 5th and Main for the Rotary Crab Feed; approval of application G2024-003, with staff recommendations, for the reserved parking spaces on Park and Third streets for the Clearlake Environmental Research Center Hometown Wildfire Safety Collaboration; and adoption of a resolution approving the Successor Agency of the Lakeport Redevelopment Agency Recognized Obligation Payment Schedule 24-25 for the period of July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Hajar Yazdiha, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Since the onset of Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza and the West Bank after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, debates have arisen among historians and media pundits about Martin Luther King Jr.’s stance on Israel and its conflicts with Palestinians.
Some claim King was a fierce Zionist and point to his speech on Mar. 25, 1968, before the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly.
“Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity,” King said. “I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.”
Others, like American-Israeli scholar Martin Kramer, have pointed to King’s views on Palestinian rights to their homeland. During a 1967 interview with ABC News, shortly after Israel launched the Six-Day War against Egypt, Syria and Jordan and seized control of land in Gaza and the West Bank, King said that Israel should return Palestinian lands.
“I think for the ultimate peace and security of the situation it will probably be necessary for Israel to give up this conquered territory, because to hold on to it will only exacerbate the tensions and deepen the bitterness of the Arabs,” he said.
As a scholar who researches social movements, racial politics and democracy, I believe there is a larger story beyond King’s stance on Israel and Palestinians. That story is on King’s views of war – and his courage to stand for peace.
This is the story of the anti-war King who understood that violence begets violence and that the political courage to speak for peace is essential to democracy.
Breaking his silence
For King, joining the peace movement was tantamount to walking a political tightrope. On one hand, the Civil Rights Movement had a great supporter in U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But LBJ was also at the heart of the escalation of the war in Vietnam, and many believed King’s anti-war statements could and would be used against him.
The U.S. government’s hypocrisy in supporting the Vietnam War was not lost on King.
In 1965, 61% of Americans supported U.S. military involvement.
At the same time, King was asking hard questions about Johnson’s wartime decision-making and unmet promises of social uplift through his Great Society programs. King wondered how a nation could drop tons of bombs and napalm on civilians in the name of peace and freedom while violently subjugating its own Black citizens.
How could a nation spend so much money on a war, King asked, when it could not feed or protect its own people?
“The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam,” King said in a speech in Beverly Hills on Feb. 25, 1967. “Billions are liberally expended for this ill-considered war. … The security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities. The bombs in Vietnam explode at home. They destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.”
The Johnson administration argued that military force was essential to protect South Vietnam from the encroachment of communism from the north. As Johnson saw it, North Vietnam and its National Liberation Front were a threat to democracy in Southeast Asia.
King’s advisers pleaded with him not to speak out and argued that the political costs would be too high. Most importantly, they reminded King that there was more than enough work to do in the U.S. to end poverty and secure equal rights for Black citizens.
But King ultimately broke with his advisers and President Johnson.
By 1967, King followed the lead of his wife – and anti-war activist – Coretta Scott King and began speaking out.
In March 1967, King led his first anti-war march in Chicago. At the rally, he called on peace activists to organize “as effectively as the war hawks.”
A month later, on April 4, 1967, King gave the speech at the Riverside Church in New York City that changed the course of the last year of his life – “Beyond Vietnam − A Time to Break the Silence.” In that revolutionary speech, King described how he was morally compelled to speak out against the war.
In the days and weeks after, he would lose masses of supporters, Black and white alike. He lost hard-earned political allies, including President Johnson.
King was also shunned and denounced by 168 newspapers that questioned King’s failure to condemn the enemy, fueling long-standing rumors about communist ties.
Saving the soul of America
King had no regrets.
He understood the difficulty of speaking out against the war. “Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war,” he said.
For King, a preacher at heart, silence had become betrayal.
Calling the U.S “the greatest purveyor of violence today,” King said the soul of America “can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over.” He warned that America had lost moral authority abroad and derided “the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.”
King pointed to the role of the U.S. in prohibiting the realization of “a revolutionary government seeking self-determination” in Vietnam.
Most poignantly in that 1967 speech at Riverside Church, King detailed the devastating costs of the Vietnam War and described the millions of children and women who were killed by American bombs and bullets and the poor masses who were spared slaughter only to face a slow, painful death by disease and starvation.
Then King turned to the so-called “enemy,” the North Vietnamese. “Even if we do not condone their actions,” King said in the speech, “surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.”
Then King called for a cease-fire.
The fight for justice and humanity
King’s words resonate today.
Unlike in King’s time, 61% of potential voters support a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Anti-war protests abound across the nation and around the world.
How can the U.S., as King would ask the nation, move forward from here?
In the 1960s, King grappled with this very question. On the one hand, he felt a deep solidarity with the Jewish struggle against persecution, and on the other hand, he rejected the violent occupation of Palestinian lands that would run counter to the noble cause.
He saw resolution through a commitment to breaking cycles of violence and practicing radical peace, “a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation.”
Nearly 60 years later, the fight for King’s “radical revolution of values,” where human life and dignity were the most valued, still rages. But as the life of King reminds us, speaking out for justice can be costly. Yet he would also say that the cost of remaining silent is far greater.
Hajar Yazdiha, Assistant Professor of Sociology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
