BHUBANESWAR: Amid the social media boom and fast-paced life, novels can deeply connect with readers and give them an opportunity to realise who they actually are and what they really want to do in their lives, said author Divya Prakash Dubey here on Sunday.
Speaking at Odisha Literary Festival’s session on ‘Chhote Sehar, Badi Kahaniyan: Kisse Purane aur Naye’, Dubey said nowadays social media users, especially youngsters, are feeling numb after watching too many reels on various platforms like Instagram.
“People are spending hours to watch reels for various reasons including to know about the success stories of famous people. However, these short videos are not able to show them any definite direction or provide solutions to the problems they are facing in their lives,” he said.
A native of Lucknow and now settled in Mumbai, Dubey further said the Gen-Z is slowly and gradually drifting towards the lifestyle which people of the country had around 30 to 40 years back. The youngsters have started avoiding electronic devices when they are travelling by air to give themselves a break from digitisation, he said.
Dubey said he is also receiving amazing response from his followers when he narrates his stories on online audio platform. “The encouraging response towards audio books indicates that they are now interested in listening rather than spending time on screens.” At times, novels can help the readers reflect on what they are doing and on some occasions, act as a guiding force too, said Dubey. He said after his novel Musafir Cafe was published in 2016, 10 to 12 people in various parts of the country including Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand opened their own coffee shops. In the novel, the male character shifts to another place and opens a cafe after his lover refuses to marry him.
So far, Dubey has written three short-story books and four novels.