Snapshots of random London commuters have recently gone viral on Chinese social media. What they all have in common is that they are of handsome men - reading books on the subway.

Many gal-pals at my university have understandably gone gaga over these good-looking English lads, and as a female myself I can see why there is such a collective crush on these commuters.

Seeing books in their hands - an even rarer sight on the Shanghai metro than foreigners - has also got me thinking about when was the last time I have read an actual paperbound book for fun.

According to media reports, Chinese people today only read 0.7 books every year on average. Compared with Koreans (seven books per year), Japanese (40 books per year) and even Russians (55 books per year!!!), China ranks shamefully low in literacy for this hemisphere.

In 2013 Sharmistha Mohapatra, an Indian expat living in Shanghai, published an article entitled "The Chinese who never read," based on her observation that during her commutes in this city she seldom if ever sees locals reading books. Because of China's new fixation with mobile phones and social media, Mohapatra said she is concerned about our imminent future as a "hopeless society."

One year later, during the third session of the 12th National People's Congress, Premier Li Keqiang echoed this same sentiment, calling on the Chinese people to read more books and promising to consider drafting new government policies to encourage reading.

In fact, Chinese students have had our faces buried in books from first grade through university. Reading is pretty much the only thing we do for the first 21 years of our lives! But I'm sure that this is not what Premier Li meant, for the only books students really read are assigned text books. Rarely do our teachers or parents encourage extracurricular reading such as novels; if we finish our homework, we are just handed another text book.

"I've been so busy with my classes, I don't have any time to read useless books," a friend said to me once after I asked her if she'd read a popular novel. The fact that she referred to literature as "useless" really says something about how our generation perceives any book that is not assigned by a teacher. Students have become so exam-obsessed that books only serve one utilitarian purpose: to get us into university. Any other kind of published book is utterly obsolete to us.

"I would rather take a nap or chat with my friends," said another friend after I asked her why she never reads literature. Indeed, after spending so many school days studying, the last thing students want to do is focus their weary eyes on even more printed matter. Leisure reading to the average student is painstaking, quite literally, so it's unsurprising that most youth prefer to spend their downtime resting their eyes.

But this isn't entirely accurate, because we all know that most young Chinese today spend their free time playing on smartphones, either engaged in social media or consumed by some silly game. The irony is not lost on me that students who say they don't read books because their eyes are too tired are the same ones sharing those pictures of the handsome London chaps on their Weibo and WeChat.

My roommate is one of the few Chinese students I know who actually reads novels, but she only does so in the privacy of our dormitory. "I do take a book or Kindle whenever I go out. But honestly, I'm afraid that other people will think I am just putting on airs," she confided in me.

How so embarrassing for China that its students feel ashamed about reading paperbound books in public, knowing that everyone nearby is scoffing at them. For this reason, I guess e-books on digital devises make more sense; while devouring Goethe's Faust we can just pretend to be playing Candy Crush or looking at photos of handsome foreigners reading books.

And how truly attractive those Brit commuters are to me, not because of their good looks but because they can actually read, and are not ashamed to show it.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Global Times.