I think there is a lot going on that contributes to this.
1. Adults read less, so children see their parents reading less often (it at all!) so do not grow up thinking it is a fun thing to do. I love reading because my parents did, and my kids do because I do.
2. Schools do not make reading enjoyable. A teacher I know suggested that their school did somethings to make reading fun, and the management refused because it improve any of their metrics. A friend of by daughter's went to a school where there were times when they had to sit and read a book - nothing kills enjoyment better than being forced to do something. You are telling kids its a chore you have to do, not something done for fun.
There are other things do. There are schools that teach Shakespeare for English literature GCSE without giving them the whole text, and without watching a video of the play, let along going to the theatre.
3. There are fewer and smaller local libraries so kids cannot discover what they like as easily. There are fewer bookshops too, because people read less.
>management refused because it improve any of their metrics
This is what everyone in the United States asked for. You wanted data driven decision making. Do not be surprised when the measure becomes the goal.
Sorry if this sounds bitter, but I spent all day yesterday arguing with administration at a college that data driven decision making is only as good as the data you feed the system, and that specifically targeting metric improvement for its own sake is step one in the road to mind death.
> A friend of by daughter's went to a school where there were times when they had to sit and read a book - nothing kills enjoyment better than being forced to do something. You are telling kids its a chore you have to do, not something done for fun.
This is, I think, a tricky line to walk. Reading is, like most things, a skill that must be practiced, and school is a good place to do so. I think a bigger part of this practice that kills enjoyment is not being able to choose what you're reading; of course kids are going to dislike reading when they're forced to read books or stories they have no interest in at all.
Unfortunately, addressing those issues would do little to address the underlying cause: We have many more ways to amuse ourselves compared to a generation ago, most of which require less "reach" for a dopamine hit (social media, netflix, video games, etc).
Personally, it seems conspicuous that one of the largest drops in 5-8 and 8-18 occurred in 2023-2024, right when the world experienced a layoff surge [1] and sites like HN noted a significant drop in hiring [2].
"enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot"
2023 to 2024, 5 to 8: 75.3 to 64.7
2023 to 2024, 8 to 18: 43.4 to 34.6
~250,000 layoffs @ ~1300 companies in 2023 [1]. Add another 100,000 and 1,000 if you take late 2022. And layoffs.fyi just tracks tech layoffs.
The WARN database has similar results. Been averaging 300-400 a month since January 2023, vs ~100 / month in the 2021-2022 timeframe. [3]
That's a lot of dislocation, moving to find jobs, household chaos, school shifting, and parents with different priorities.
I would say that they are reading fewer books but I think total number of hours reading is similar or growing.
Reading tweets and text messages is still reading. My nephew has trouble learning to read, until he started playing minecraft and needed to read websites and instructions for mods and such. Then getting his first cellphone did away with any concept of reading difficulties. We have entire economies of people reading text on computers all day (ie my job). I would bet that the average person today read better/faster than their equivalent in centuries past. They are reading junk, but they are actually reading.
I actually thing that millenials (i.e. the parents of 2025 children) read more than any other generation. Just not books.
Until recently, the internet was mostly text, we didn't have the bandwidth for anything else. And it meant reading. Text messengers took the place of phone calls, even more reading. Text was also how video games told stories, more reading. And finally, subtitles, they keep growing in popularity, so even when you are watching videos, you are reading.
GenX was all about TV, boomers spent more time outside and talking, and if you get far enough back, people didn't even know how to read. I think GenZ still read a lot, but now, audiovisual content is more prevalent on the internet than it was before. Also, audiobooks gained in popularity.
Maybe we should make define what "reading" is. Is it actual reading, as in textual communication, or is it consuming books, but in this case, do audiobooks count?
If you only count reading paper books, then sure, people read less, but that's because there are so many alternatives nowadays. And maybe some attention deficit.
Stress and pressure due to the job market and housing costs. Smarter teens are drilling leetcode to stay competitive so they won’t be destitute when the boomers liquidate social security and deficit us all into eternal serfdom, or that’s what one of them told me when I asked why he didn’t spend more time reading novels.
I think what speaks to the core of today's young men runs counter to my impression of the kind of books being popularized.
When I was younger and read fiction I had access to a fair amount of copies of young adult novels that would never be front-and-center at a bookstore or library. In fact I think that most of these books were the rejects from the main libraries in my town. Violence, abandonment, resent, regret abound! Many of it was senseless and the endings were not as neat and resolved as the schoolteacher led me to believe how all books ought to end.
I’m not recommending this experience. But young men do need author[itie]s to guide them through the discomforting aspects of their lives in an un-fantastic fashion.
+1 to your point about the type of books being popularized.
I grew up obsessively rereading Redwall, Pendragon, RA Salvatore’s stuff, Ranger’s Apprentice, Enders Game, Tyrant of Jupiter, Maze Runner. Like you said, the me of now can’t recommend things like Tyrant, but still I can’t imagine that would have appealed to any of the girls I knew at that time, let alone the young women of today.
By the same token, although I read Twilight and Hunger Games, I never was obsessed like the girls in my classes were. I can’t imagine that boys today are particularly interested in A Court Of Thorns and Roses and the other spiritual successors of Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, etc.
It's a vicious cycle. Less fiction from male perspective is published because boys don't read. Boys don't read because men are less represented in fiction.
I don't think there is a solution except some form of affirmative action.
Because this is UK focused it assumes you'll know that FSM = Free School Meal which is a proxy for household poverty. People who've seen this kind of work in other fields will recognise such proxies and probably assumed that's what is going on, but just in case.
It's an academic paper, so if written correctly it does not make that assumption (about the domain-specific abbreviation at least). Instead, the abbreviation will be written out in full at the first use, and it is:
> Slightly more children and young people who didn’t receive free school meals (FSMs) told us they enjoyed reading compared with their peers who received FSMs
Given what children claim motivates them to read it sounds like well-written text adventures would do wonders for literacy.
But I suspect that would not be that easy. I think both books and text adventures would be competing against activities with much lower requirements on effort, and much higher immediate rewards.
With my own kids what has worked is setting aside time, before bed where they _have to read_. It can be anything they want, they pick books from library most of the time.
The risk of this approach might be that it could suck the fun out of it making it a chore, but that has not been the case - they both like to read books now.
Creating that space for reading has been essential. It's impossible to compete against all of the other things otherwise.
There’s been a tragic drop off in the quality of children’s books in the past decade or so. Of course they can go back to the classics or read stuff from the 2000s but those often lack connection to contemporary culture.
Our daughter is 11 and is a voracious reader. This isn’t my experience at all. We read daily to her until she didn’t want us to any more a year or so ago. But we never had any trouble finding good books, some new and some older.
I really love kids books of all sorts - especially the illustrated ones are real works of art.
I think it's just always hard to find stuff you like, and time is a great filter. There are tons of new series that my sons like: the whole Percy Jackson world, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dog Man, Lemony Snicket, Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales, etc. Lots of books out there!
Fantasy kids books, e:g Tolkien, CS Lewis (Narnia), Joan Aiken, Edith Nesbit are timeless though right? Then there are books set in a different time, that kids still enjoy e:g Just William series 1920-60 (which contains some stereotypes about race or gender roles which can actually lead to a healthy discussion about to what extent we've moved on and "don't say those sorts of things" nowadays) . So, books set in the current decade are great but kids can have a lot of fun reading older stuff if that isn't available. Ours read quite a mix of old and new.
I've been thinking about this a bit lately, because my sister has a son I'd like to share some of my favourite Goosebumps books from the 90s with. I think they'd still be fun reads for a 7-10 year old, but I wonder how much the world depicted in them would make sense for my nephew.
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I disagree that literacy is all about reading fictional books and I wish we could broaden it a little bit more, even at school.
This might be an odd take, but I never liked reading books and have read very few books in my whole life. I do love to read news articles, forum posts, magazines etc. because the format fits me.
Judging myself by my education level and career I'd say I did just fine without opening a single book.
I enjoyed reading fiction until I studied electrical engineering. After that I felt that fiction was a waste of time. On a cognitive level I don't think it is, but I think the feeling comes from having been instilled with a sense that reading has to involve some degree of learning. As though everything I do has to involve some self betterment. It's frustrating and I feel a sense of loss about it.
I have to stop people from doing this in presentations all the time lol. Just say "Runtime decreased from 117s to 34". It is really easy to mentally compare two numbers; it is much harder to start with "Runtime decreased by 71% to 34s" and find the old value. Equally brief, never any ambiguity, easier on the mind, and no weird explosions as you approach zero.
I'd wager it's the first (51.1%). Mostly because I simply cannot imagine that nearly 70% of kids in 2005 enjoyed reading. That seems too high. Based on..? My vibes.
What does "they read something daily in their free time in 2025" actually mean?
I think it means actual books.
I think it excludes forums, discord chats, and general online stuff.
Kids are forced to read more than ever before to interact with their peers. The rise of sites like Web Novel and Royal Road are inspirational. I would guess that there are more "writers" than ever before in history.
The PDF report covers the difference between print and screen reading around page 27, I think their daily reading must be content available in print and screen but it is not clearly defined.
That section does show that 2/3rds of screen reading though is direct messages, social media, and text in video games. Blogs and forums only hit 1/4.
Kids might be forced to read more than ever before, but not all reading is the same, anymore than using a games console and iPad as a kid makes you fully computer literate.
These stats are hard to interpret - this could all very well be consistent with the kids these days turning out to be the most literate generation in history. There is very strong incentive to get good at reading to interact with the internet even if it isn't reading for 'enjoyment'.
There is a linked PDF, but I'd actually be more interested in reading the original survey to see how 'reading' is being framed. Is an hour in the HN comments section counted as reading for fun?
Does this consider audiobooks? Personally, I have been reading fewer physical books and have preferred to listen to them instead. This comes as my eyesight deteriorates, but I can imagine that for others, listening to books over audio can be a more pleasant experience.
I don't know the answer to your question, but whether this is a solution depends on your focus: if you want young people to be able to read properly (locate and ingest information quickly) then audio books are not going to solve that. If the focus is reading enjoyment then sure. Could also watch a video and be perfectly entertained
[+] [-] graemep|6 months ago|reply
1. Adults read less, so children see their parents reading less often (it at all!) so do not grow up thinking it is a fun thing to do. I love reading because my parents did, and my kids do because I do.
2. Schools do not make reading enjoyable. A teacher I know suggested that their school did somethings to make reading fun, and the management refused because it improve any of their metrics. A friend of by daughter's went to a school where there were times when they had to sit and read a book - nothing kills enjoyment better than being forced to do something. You are telling kids its a chore you have to do, not something done for fun.
There are other things do. There are schools that teach Shakespeare for English literature GCSE without giving them the whole text, and without watching a video of the play, let along going to the theatre.
3. There are fewer and smaller local libraries so kids cannot discover what they like as easily. There are fewer bookshops too, because people read less.
[+] [-] Loughla|6 months ago|reply
This is what everyone in the United States asked for. You wanted data driven decision making. Do not be surprised when the measure becomes the goal.
Sorry if this sounds bitter, but I spent all day yesterday arguing with administration at a college that data driven decision making is only as good as the data you feed the system, and that specifically targeting metric improvement for its own sake is step one in the road to mind death.
[+] [-] squigz|6 months ago|reply
This is, I think, a tricky line to walk. Reading is, like most things, a skill that must be practiced, and school is a good place to do so. I think a bigger part of this practice that kills enjoyment is not being able to choose what you're reading; of course kids are going to dislike reading when they're forced to read books or stories they have no interest in at all.
[+] [-] panda-giddiness|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] CompoundEyes|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] araes|6 months ago|reply
"enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot"
2023 to 2024, 5 to 8: 75.3 to 64.7
2023 to 2024, 8 to 18: 43.4 to 34.6
~250,000 layoffs @ ~1300 companies in 2023 [1]. Add another 100,000 and 1,000 if you take late 2022. And layoffs.fyi just tracks tech layoffs.
The WARN database has similar results. Been averaging 300-400 a month since January 2023, vs ~100 / month in the 2021-2022 timeframe. [3]
That's a lot of dislocation, moving to find jobs, household chaos, school shifting, and parents with different priorities.
[1] "Layoff Charts Tab" https://layoffs.fyi
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1dvdssj/oc...
[3] https://layoffdata.com/
[+] [-] sandworm101|6 months ago|reply
Reading tweets and text messages is still reading. My nephew has trouble learning to read, until he started playing minecraft and needed to read websites and instructions for mods and such. Then getting his first cellphone did away with any concept of reading difficulties. We have entire economies of people reading text on computers all day (ie my job). I would bet that the average person today read better/faster than their equivalent in centuries past. They are reading junk, but they are actually reading.
[+] [-] GuB-42|6 months ago|reply
Until recently, the internet was mostly text, we didn't have the bandwidth for anything else. And it meant reading. Text messengers took the place of phone calls, even more reading. Text was also how video games told stories, more reading. And finally, subtitles, they keep growing in popularity, so even when you are watching videos, you are reading.
GenX was all about TV, boomers spent more time outside and talking, and if you get far enough back, people didn't even know how to read. I think GenZ still read a lot, but now, audiovisual content is more prevalent on the internet than it was before. Also, audiobooks gained in popularity.
Maybe we should make define what "reading" is. Is it actual reading, as in textual communication, or is it consuming books, but in this case, do audiobooks count?
If you only count reading paper books, then sure, people read less, but that's because there are so many alternatives nowadays. And maybe some attention deficit.
[+] [-] notmyjob|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] tolerance|6 months ago|reply
When I was younger and read fiction I had access to a fair amount of copies of young adult novels that would never be front-and-center at a bookstore or library. In fact I think that most of these books were the rejects from the main libraries in my town. Violence, abandonment, resent, regret abound! Many of it was senseless and the endings were not as neat and resolved as the schoolteacher led me to believe how all books ought to end.
I’m not recommending this experience. But young men do need author[itie]s to guide them through the discomforting aspects of their lives in an un-fantastic fashion.
[+] [-] embeng4096|6 months ago|reply
I grew up obsessively rereading Redwall, Pendragon, RA Salvatore’s stuff, Ranger’s Apprentice, Enders Game, Tyrant of Jupiter, Maze Runner. Like you said, the me of now can’t recommend things like Tyrant, but still I can’t imagine that would have appealed to any of the girls I knew at that time, let alone the young women of today.
By the same token, although I read Twilight and Hunger Games, I never was obsessed like the girls in my classes were. I can’t imagine that boys today are particularly interested in A Court Of Thorns and Roses and the other spiritual successors of Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, etc.
[+] [-] watwut|6 months ago|reply
Also, young men have literally no shortage of violent or resentful entertainment in their disposal.
[+] [-] raincole|6 months ago|reply
I don't think there is a solution except some form of affirmative action.
[+] [-] tialaramex|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Freak_NL|6 months ago|reply
> Slightly more children and young people who didn’t receive free school meals (FSMs) told us they enjoyed reading compared with their peers who received FSMs
[+] [-] dmichulke|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] kqr|6 months ago|reply
But I suspect that would not be that easy. I think both books and text adventures would be competing against activities with much lower requirements on effort, and much higher immediate rewards.
[+] [-] elevaet|6 months ago|reply
The risk of this approach might be that it could suck the fun out of it making it a chore, but that has not been the case - they both like to read books now.
Creating that space for reading has been essential. It's impossible to compete against all of the other things otherwise.
[+] [-] spacebanana7|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lemming|6 months ago|reply
I really love kids books of all sorts - especially the illustrated ones are real works of art.
[+] [-] bkandel|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] nickd2001|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] footy|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] _aavaa_|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] welfare|6 months ago|reply
This might be an odd take, but I never liked reading books and have read very few books in my whole life. I do love to read news articles, forum posts, magazines etc. because the format fits me.
Judging myself by my education level and career I'd say I did just fine without opening a single book.
[+] [-] squishington|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|6 months ago|reply
So was it half of the kids before or two thirds?
I know it doesn't really matter but this sort of wording does make me curiousSince they do use "percentage points" further down, presumably it was 51% in 2005
[+] [-] recursivecaveat|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jermberj|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] wccrawford|6 months ago|reply
I think it means actual books.
I think it excludes forums, discord chats, and general online stuff.
Kids are forced to read more than ever before to interact with their peers. The rise of sites like Web Novel and Royal Road are inspirational. I would guess that there are more "writers" than ever before in history.
[+] [-] hennell|6 months ago|reply
That section does show that 2/3rds of screen reading though is direct messages, social media, and text in video games. Blogs and forums only hit 1/4.
Kids might be forced to read more than ever before, but not all reading is the same, anymore than using a games console and iPad as a kid makes you fully computer literate.
[+] [-] roenxi|6 months ago|reply
There is a linked PDF, but I'd actually be more interested in reading the original survey to see how 'reading' is being framed. Is an hour in the HN comments section counted as reading for fun?
[+] [-] unknown|6 months ago|reply
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[+] [-] hodgehog11|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] BrenBarn|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|6 months ago|reply
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