Are there any Millenials (1981-1996) and Gen Z (1997-2006***) here on Paperbackswap?   Where are youuuu   

You are the future of this bookswapping club!

How do we get more young people to join PBS?

***Gen Z born after 2006, you are not supposed to be here yet... you need to be 18 years old to join PBS. Hehehe.

Interesting that you should be asking~ in all my years on here, I think maybe I've met only a handful of ladies in those age groups. most didn't stay with all the baby/kids stages they were going thru and no time for reading. Then with electronic/cell, if they were readers, they all went to kindles/etc. 

with my friends here that still enjoy 'holding' a book, most are over 50 now. We've all aged together over the 15-20 years we've spent on here while watching the decline of 'holding a real book'. 

I was in B&N over the weekend in Ft. Collins, CO, and was surprised. First, I didnt think there were any B&Ns still open and second I was surprised at how many people were in the store, how large it was, and the fact that people were buying multiple books at a time, given the cost of books these days. 

Generation Z and Millenials might be on the site but likely not the forums. But being on the forums is not a requirement to exchange books.

The best way to get new members is word of mouth, I mention it to others all the time that it is a website they might like. Younger generations are still reading and like physical books still. We could all promote the site to younger family members to friends we get together with or even acquaintances we meet places.

Not members, but my daughters aged 34 and 28 have their WL books on my list. They do not have space to store books to host a bookshelf here, nor would want to take time and effort to wrap and mail books. My 3 girls have a horrible time getting to PO as only time they might be available to do so is Saturday morns. 

I'm 31 years old

We've been here close to the same number of years so I won't say welcome, Schuylar, but I'm so pleased you posted here and confirmed that younger people still like reading physical books.

I've been a member since 2007 and was born in 1981.

So pleased to meet younger members like you, Mary, and so glad you like real books.

I run a high school library, and have almost nothing but physical books. I have tried getting ebooks, but no one wanted them. In October, a sales rep from Follett talked to us library workers about ebooks, and...the notion that physical books were soon going to disappear is more than a little exaggerated. Follett hired an outside company to handle the ebooks--which soon went out of business. Then Follett started handling ebooks in-house, but sales were sluggish until the pandemic, when they skyrocketed due to the need for books that could be checked out and read remotely. After the pandemic, however, sales plummeted--in a large part because reading levels dropped 43%. It seems that early studies that found that retention was better from physical books were right.

When I get hold of children's books and post them, I get a lot of requests from teachers and librarians. Kids want to read the physical books.

I think I used to be 31 years old...

haha, Patty........63 years old and I will always prefer a hand-held book I think. Screen time really tires my eyes, don't know how I would read a book if I only used my ipad. News on the phone is challenging enough.

Me, too! I don't care if it's hardback or paperback, but it needs to be a book.

I just saw this pic of a library bed, this seems a good place to share it:

Nice -- with a built-in reading light!

'92 Mellenial here! I'm not sure how to recruit younger folks... Maybe update the website so it doesn't look like it's from 2005? An app? Maybe stickers with a QR code or bookmarks to randomly distribute?

Hi, Ashley! You can print bookmarks to hand out :)

Pull down the menu on the "Community" tab, scroll down to "Spread the Word" and there is the link to PBS bookmarks!