The habits of sustained reading are not being taught and new distractions and diversions are reducing the number of young people who read for fun, according to an article in The 74. From 1984 to 2023, the number of 13-year-olds who said they “never or hardly ever” read for fun on their own time has nearly quadrupled, from just 8% to 31%.
And the percentage of middle-schoolers who read for fun “almost every day” has fallen by double digits, according to surveys conducted for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In 1984, 35% of middle school kids read for fun almost every day. By 2023, it was just 14%.
This is part of a larger shift away from reading, research suggests. A new study from the University of Florida and University College London found that daily reading for pleasure has dropped more than 40% among all age groups over the last two decades, “a sustained, steady decline” of about 3% per year.
These declines spark concern that reading is devolving into an act relegated to a small group of elites, a “reading class” that enjoys books while the rest of us see them as, in the words of scholar Wendy Griswold, “an increasingly arcane hobby.”
Young people are often reading constantly, but often in fragments — school assignments, alerts, text messages, memes and social media posts. These bits add up: one study found the typical American reads the equivalent of a slim novel every day. But that’s not like sitting down to read a book.
COVID lockdowns hurt reading levels, but the decline existed before the pandemic. Factors include schools’ varied approaches to reading instruction and two decades of test-driven K-12 school practices that often de-emphasize fiction in favor of short non-fiction passages.
This has occurred during the birth of smartphones and the unregulated rise of social media. Blame isn’t put on students’ but on a schooling and media ecosystem that has taken long-form reading out of their hands.
School life can be overbearing. Students often are heavily burdened with sports, after-hour clubs, school assignments and homework. There is little time for lengthy pleasure reading.
To be sure, young people in the U.S. are reading words, that’s not the issue. In her most recent book, the literacy scholar Maryanne Wolf noted that research from as far back as 2009 found that the average American reads what amounts to about 100,500 words daily — from newspapers, magazines, books, games, messages and social media posts.
This grazing type of reading is “rarely continuous, sustained, or concentrated,” Wolf says. “We have, really, a demise of deep reading, which for me is synonymous with critical thinking and empathy and the beauty of the reading act.”
Movies, TV, the Internet, texting and social media have shifted habits away from reading and writing and toward visual and oral communication. At least two generations of young people see books and reading as optional.
Digital entertainment has conditioned the young to want to get information as fast as possible.
These days, even the most elite students are rebelling against reading. Daniel Willingham, a longtime University of Virginia professor, said he has noticed lately that his students — “some of the most successful that the system produces” — not only complain about long readings but about “being asked to learn as much as I ask them to learn.”
Willingham believes the pandemic scaled back expectations that have yet to be restored. A leading authority on cognitive science in the classroom, Willingham suggests to his students that they consider different study strategies. He advocates a broad background knowledge in reading instruction and says he’s “actually cheered and optimistic” that more educators are realizing the importance of a rich curriculum.
The biggest irony: the Internet has eroded young people’s desire to read books, offering distractions and opportunities to do something else. But it also makes it easier than ever for young people to find excellent books.
To bring back reading, schools may need to do more than improve instruction and reading stamina and find a few appealing books. Reading advocates argue mobile phones must be kept out of classrooms. Many states and schools are banning cell phones. Advocates also want to see a back-to-basics approach that treats reading as an indicator of public health.
In 20 years, Carl Hendrick, a Dublin-born professor at Academica University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam and co-author of the 2024 book How Learning Happens, predicts that reading and deep cognitive focus will be found to offer the same kinds of benefits as exercising or a balanced diet.
The 74
