“Reading is so dumb,” fellow students say in English classrooms. “You’re telling me I have to read 75 pages a week? I can’t read that much in a year.”

Everywhere, people have their noses shoved in their electronic devices, without the courtesy to look where they’re going. Some students say that reading books takes up too much time, but according to a poll on Goodreads, a free website for book lovers, out of 5829 voters, 37 percent said that reading a 300 page book only takes them 3-6 hours. Though, it definitely depends on the type of book.

It is understandable for teens who work, play sports or have other time-consuming after school activities to not have much time to read when they get home. However, according to iKeepSafe, an international alliance of policy leaders, educators, law enforcement members, technology experts, public health experts and advocates who track global trends and issues about digital products and their affect on children, kids ages 8-18 spend on average 44.5 hours per week in front of screens. If kids can find that much time in a week to blankly stare at a screen, they can take a few hours out to read.

To this fact, some students would simply state that reading is boring, and that they have better things to do than read a dumb book. Reading is anything but dull.

Now, it is not a secret that, compared to a five-year-old, an adult tends to barely use his imagination.

According to David Straker, author of Creative Minds, which is one of the largest full-information sites on how to be creative, at about five years of age, kids use about 80 percent of their creative potential. But, by the age of 12, their creative output has declined to about two percent. Reading, according to Straker, is one of the things that can help keep the imagination hard at work.

Another common excuse to avoid reading is that it simply does not appeal to students, but it is no excuse. Books come in all different types of genres, just like movies, yet people can not seem to get enough of the films on the big screen.

So, put down the phone, throw those excuses out the door and pick up a novel. Reading can be just as addictive as playing an awesome video game, or feel as necessary as texting back a friend. Books can take anyone anywhere they want to go. They just have to be willing to take the ride.