Summary
A National Literacy Trust (NLT) survey reveals that children’s enjoyment of reading is at its lowest in 19 years, with only 34.6% of eight- to 18-year-olds saying they enjoy reading in their free time.
This marks an 8.8 percentage point drop from last year, part of a declining trend since 2016.
Reading frequency has also hit a historic low, and a significant gender gap persists, with only 28.2% of boys versus 40.5% of girls enjoying reading.
The NLT calls for a government taskforce to address these declines, warning that “the futures of a generation are being put at risk.”
Audiobooks, audiobooks, audiobooks. I read a lot as a kid/teen so maybe I have that going for me, but into my adult years and the invention of YouTube I didn’t read quite so much.
Then audiobooks entered my life, 1 a month with audible is easy to achieve as bed time reading. Then I added them to chores. I’m un/fortunate enough to work a mindless job so I added them there too mixed in with music. Now I smash a couple books a week and still have an unhealthy YouTube habit.
Reading fiction is something I can only do when I’m calm, relaxed and have no worries. That is not a state I have experienced for like thirty years.
Maybe if we raised children in a world that wasn’t a complete dumpster fire they would be able to read for hours at a time.
I tried to read fiction. hell, I even tried to read fiction I read 20 years ago.
I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t focus on the story.
I read Isekai manga now, and I’m waiting for the sweet release of death to take me to another world where I don’t have to put up with this bullshit.
I just want a nice quiet existence with one, maybe two, cat girls and go on fun adventures to hot springs with them. maybe farm a bit, build a small village.
no phones, no computers, no bullshit fascist fuck heads trying to rule the world.
I know personally my enjoyment of reading dropped like a rock in my tweens & teens. Too much schoolwork and over analyzing of books in school got me burned out. I made up for it in my late 20s-30s though.
My daughter has been better so far in this regard, but now that she’s in high school I can tell she’s getting closer to mirroring my feelings. She’s switched to Manga/graphic novels instead of long form novels and that’s helped a bit, but we’ll see if that keeps up in the years to come.
I get the over analyzing thing, but I think that really comes down to the style of teaching. I had some good teachers and bad teacher, teachers, and with a good teacher teachers, I did enjoy literary analysis as long as it didn’t get too bogged down in the analysis and two departed from actually enjoying the peace of literature we were analyzing.
And I’m particularly glad that I still have those skills for analysis as an adult.
In my country, I can understand that children read less. Many don’t learn about books at home anymore, and the books we throw at the kids in school are bound to alienate kids from ever touching books again.
I’m sure that that’s been replaced by screen time. Social media in particular is much more neurochemically rewarding.
Maybe I’m missing it but where in the article does it say “reading books”? Reading can be done via a tablet or even a phone. You can check out a digital book from the library. The article as far as i can tell just says they don’t enjoy reading for pleasure
It can be, but I doubt it’s nearly as common as paper reading or social media.
