The Influence of Novel Competence towards Teenagers‘ Development in South Tangerang

This research was motivated by concerns over the low interest in reading among adolescents in Indonesia. When compared with other countries in the world, Indonesian teenagers' interest in reading ranks 60 out of 61 countries. On the other hand, Indonesian teenagers also enjoy consuming hoaxes. This research has two objectives. First, to determine students' reading interest in novels. Second, to determine the influence of novels in shaping students' characters. Researchers visited eight schools in South Tangerang City to map their reading interest and arouse youth reading interest, especially in literary works. This study used a quasi experimental design and non-equivalent control design. In this design, the research subjects were not randomly selected. The researcher divided the subjects into two groups: the experimental group (given reading of teen novels) and the control group (given reading of non-literary works). In these two groups, researchers conducted a personality pretest and posttest. The result, adolescent reading interest was higher than their hobby of reading. Teens also preferred digital reading to printed reading.