Study says only 16% of Americans still read for fun

(CN) — Daily reading for pleasure has plummeted by 40% over the last 20 years, according to a new study, published Wednesday in the journal iScience.

“This is not just a small dip — it’s a sustained, steady decline of about 3% per year,” said Jill Sonke, director of research initiatives at the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, a co-author of the study. “It’s significant, and it’s deeply concerning.”

The fact that fewer Americans are reading than ever before does not exactly come across as shocking news. Decades ago, subways passengers leafed through newspapers and paperbacks. Now, most can be seen scrolling on their smartphones. Sonke said she believes this is part of a long, gradual trend in American life, going back at least 80 years.

Nonetheless, previous attempts to study the decline in reading showed mixed results. The newer study analyzed data from over 236,000 Americans who participated in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey between 2003 and 2023 — a far more detailed and wide-ranging data set than the previous research had used. Researchers out of the University of Florida and the University College London focused on the time spent reading for pleasure and the time spent reading to children.

In 2004, 28% of participants reported reading for pleasure on an average day. By 2023, that number had shrank to just 16%. That includes time spent reading on tablets or e-readers. The study found a steeper decline in reading amongst Black people, people with lower incomes and less education, and among those living in rural areas. Interestingly, those who do read reported a slight increase in the time spent reading. Book readers said they spent an average of one hour and 37 minutes reading per day, a 14-minute increase from two decades ago. It is, perhaps, an indication of yet another area where Americans are becoming polarized.

Another data point that Sonke found unsettling: 21% of survey participants had children under the age of nine, but only 2% of respondents said they were reading to their children. That statistic appears to have remained flat over the years, but it remains a troubling number.

“Not only is reading to children so important in terms of educational readiness and attainment,” Sonke said, “I also think it’s really important for bonding. We know that that bonding is really important to early childhood development.”

Sonke offered up a range of reasons for the decline in reading for pleasure: shrinking leisure time, unequal access to books and the increasing use of digital media.

“Our digital culture is certainly part of the story,” Sonke said. “But there are also structural issues — limited access to reading materials, economic insecurity and a national decline in leisure time. If you’re working multiple jobs or dealing with transportation barriers in a rural area, a trip to the library may just not be feasible.”

The paper warns of the implications this decline in reading might have on people’s physical and mental health.

“Reading policy often focusses on children and young people, as reading is fundamental to education, but policymakers must also consider adults, as reading has broader benefits for health and wellbeing, particularly for stress, depression and sleep disorders, which are all on the rise in the US,” the authors write in the paper.

“We know that reading for pleasure has benefits to mental health and well-being,” said Sonke, who is the co-director of the EpiArts Lab, which studies the relationship relationships between arts, participation and health outcomes. “It’s relaxing, it’s distracting, it stimulates our imagination and our creativity. It engages us with narratives which can enhance empathy and understanding. So there are a lot of ways that reading for pleasure enhances our health and well-being and quality of life.”

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