In my last blog, I replied to a teacher’s question about teaching a love of reading. She noted the many recent reports of declines in pleasure reading (e.g., Horowitch, 2026).
I pointed out that this decline is not just a recent trend, but one that stretches back more than 80 years (Bone, Bu, Sonke, & Fancourt, 2006). I also noted that not only are Americans reading less, but the same is true in the United Kingdom and Australia (Cremin & Scholes, 2024).
Of three possible reasons for the downturn, my analysis suggested that we can’t blame it on low reading ability or lack of opportunity.
The idea of “pleasure reading” is somewhat amorphous. That’s why it often gets mixed up with fiction reading. Some people seemingly can’t imagine anyone reading history, biography, cookbooks, or technical manuals for enjoyment, though many of us do just that. One wonders if survey respondents are also confused by this – claiming they don’t read for pleasure because they don’t read fiction
That same kind of confusion was apparent in older surveys when it came to digital reading. It wasn’t clear what counted as reading. Recent surveys make a clearer distinction between traditional books and e-books (Montgomery, 2025), so both now get counted. But I’d bet that the reading of social media still is not, though it is reading (St. Aubin & Liedke, 2025).
Nevertheless, it seems likely that there has been a real downward shift in our reading habits.
There are two possible reasons for this – either we’re no longer pursuing the goals that we once read for, or the availability of other media sources now make it possible to accomplish those goals as well or better than before without reading.
The easy availability of screens suggests it’s the latter. Someone killing time perusing a newspaper or magazine over their morning coffee or while waiting for the dentist, may now view videoclips on their phones instead. Such viewing fills the time every bit as well as reading once did.
Why should we care whether people read? Not “why is it important for people to know how to read?” or “why does it matter that they engage in the reading needed for their work or to participate in our communities as citizens?” The answers to those questions are obvious. But does it matter that my neighbor reads, or reads books, or reads fiction?
There are lots of claims about why reading matters: it fosters empathy and perspective taking; improves critical thinking; builds vocabulary, language, and communication skills; allows for anticipation and rehearsal of experiences; strengthens memory and cognition; builds knowledge; reduces stress and improves sleep; builds problem solving skills; provides a sense of support and belonging (Barker, 2024).
That’s an impressive list. Some of those claims are even supported by evidence. For instance, it’s clear that reading enhances language by helping readers to increase their vocabularies (Wasik, Hindman, & Snell, 2016). That’s also true for other media such as TV viewing, but text language tends to be much more challenging than the language presented by other sources, so it is probably the best way to enhance language (Kucker, Barr, & Perry, 2026).
We can learn things from our reading as well, so the notion that it increases knowledge is a no-brainer. Many claims about the benefits of reading focus on its ability to transport readers to different places and different times. That makes sense but just means that there are certain kinds of knowledge that reading may increase. It is reasonable to point out that one can build knowledge – including those specific types – through other media, though texts can be more detailed and extensive than what we usually experience through those other sources.
There are studies showing reading to be an effective and efficient tension reliever (Lewis, 2009). Maybe that reading in the dentist office isn’t just for killing time. But it’s fair to point out that listening to music can have a similar effect, though apparently it takes music longer to work its magic.
Certainly, reading about things that haven’t happened or haven’t happened to us allows us to imagine how we might respond in the future. But that seems equally true of films and other media.
The idea that reading fosters empathy and perspective taking has been a popular claim. One widely noted study found that this only happened with the reading of literary fiction but not with popular fiction or non-fiction (Kidd & Castano, 2013). In other words, if you read Jane Austin you’ll become a better person, but that won’t happen if you read Danielle Steele. At least that’s what’s purported. Examining all the research on this issue suggests caution (Denham, 2024), and these same benefits have been accomplished by watching video narratives (Rohm, Hopp, & Smit, 2022).
The claims about reading’s purported positive impacts on critical thinking, memory, and cognition are supported only by correlational evidence. You can’t tell if reading fosters those abilities or if those who are gifted in those areas are more likely to be readers. It is true that studies have found that more areas of the brain “light up” or are activated during reading than while watching television (Rauschecker, Nedelec, Pan, Olaru, Nillo, Palmer, Pecheva, Dale, Jernigan, & Sugrue, 2025).
The unsubstantiated idea that reading accords a sense of belonging seems to contradict actual data – remember the study discussed in my previous blog – teens who read more were less happy than those who read less, probably because of the isolation from social participation that it often requires (Csikszentmihalyi & Hunter, 2003).
Rarely do these hagiographies of reading champion that idea of social isolation as a plus. Years ago, I did workshops on motivating reading. My audiences were mostly elementary teachers – so they tended to be predominately women. I would ask why they read, and the number one response was the separation that it provided. These women taught all day, and then came home and prepared dinner, dealt with children and husbands and they saw reading as a much-needed escape from meeting the needs of everyone else. Reading gave them a chance to recharge and heal. They often read what may be characterized as junk and they were embarrassed about this, but they weren’t looking to sharpen their critical thinking or to gain deep knowledge about anything. They just wanted to get away, to claw out a bit of me-time. I suspect a good deal of television viewing and net surfing fills that role, too.
One more benefit that might not get sufficient attention is the aesthetic pleasure that certain texts can provide. Anyone who has luxuriated in the language of Shakespeare or Faulkner knows of what I speak. It’s possible to admire the beauty of language by listening to the radio or watching a film, but those media make it clumsy to dwell on the beauty or to review the gorgeous parts.
What sense do I make of all that?
I think reading is valuable because it can contribute to our lives in so many ways. But newer technologies and media sources have developed that can address the same needs or help us solve the same problems. Sometimes the new alternatives may do a better job, in other cases they pale by comparison – but, at least for some people, those alternatives are acceptable. Given that, we should expect people to read less or to read different kinds of texts than in the past, and that is not necessarily a problem.
Where it becomes one is with youngsters. As noted, reading can improve language – and this includes increasing one’s reading and writing proficiency. I might not be worried about my neighbors who’d rather watch the movie than read the book, but I am concerned about their children who may be blowing reading off, too. If those kids are going to reach the levels of reading that we hope for them, they will need to practice more.
In the previous blog, I noted the many efforts teachers have made to encourage reading, such as “drop everything and read” times during school days. Such efforts haven’t born much fruit. Those periods just swap one kind of reading for another. We’re making reading part of our lives, not part of the kids’ lives. Ultimately, it’s the youngster who will have to decide to turn off Roblox and pick up a book or magazine.
What can we do?
First, we should stop avoiding literacy during the school day – and this is not just a K-12 complaint. Schools devote a lot of time to the teaching of reading, writing, and spelling. But then we often avoid reading during math, social studies, science, and the arts. Teachers work around the books in so many ways – telling students what they say, reading them to the kids, and just skipping them altogether.
Recent reports out of the universities is that college students won’t do the reading, so professors have cut back on reading requirements (Baier, Hendricks, Gorden, Hendricks, & Cochran, 2011). What they should be doing is making sure the reading assignments contribute to learning and then hold students accountable for this – by having discussions of the material in class, perhaps led by students, and holding them accountable for the text-based information through quizzes and tests.
Second, we need to promote reading outside of school, encouraging parents to get their kids reading. Recent surveys show that the amount of parent reading to young children hasn’t declined over the past couple of decades – it’s the one kind of reading that has not lessened. That sounds like something to celebrate, but the same surveys reveal that few parents have ever read to their children (Bone, Bu, Sonke, & Fancourt, 2006). Pediatrician-based programs like Reach Out and Read have shown that we can make headway with parents, and schools should find ways to encourage this too. Schools often know which families have kids who haven’t yet started school and can provide encouragement, books, and other supports (like parent workshops). Those actions can make a big difference. Local libraries often provide terrific programming aimed at getting young children involved with books, but too often those efforts are not coordinated with the schools.
Many parents are not aware of the importance of their children’s reading practice, so if their kids resist they back down. Providing information to the community about the value of reading can stiffen the backbones of parents. This kind of information and encouragement may be even more needed with the older students. Lots of moms and dads will focus on their kids’ reading when they are first learning to read, but they tend to back off pretty quickly after that. Big mistake. Encouragement from the schools can keep them engaged.
Third, recently there has been a major push in literacy education to make sure that the texts used for teaching reading include content that we hope the kids will master; building knowledge. This has led to reading programs that include units framed around topics based on social studies and science standards. Nothing wrong with that, though I’m concerned that, at least in some cases, the role that literature can play in fostering knowledge (both literary and psychosocial) is being elbowed out of the picture.
However, I also think that it would be useful for students to spend some time building knowledge about literacy and its uses. Once upon a time, when I was a reading consultant in a school district, we had a weekly period in which students studied literacy. They engaged in homework activities in which they tried to identify all the uses of reading and writing that they could find and bring in the evidence. This led to kids collecting notes, magazines, books, newspapers, baseball cards, menus, parking tickets, mail, recipes, cereal boxes, pictures of road signs, and so on. In class, these items would be discussed, and their uses would be evaluated in terms of their who, what, where, why, and how. Perhaps we should have engaged them in planning and conducting interviews with people about what and why they read.
Imagine a classroom in which the kids are studying literacy. The teacher shares that research indicating that the reading of certain kinds of literature increases empathy and perspective taking, explaining how that is supposed to work (e.g., stories allow us to get inside the heads of characters, for instance). Then they read R. J. Palacio’s Wonder, to engage in that kind of compassion centered literacy to experience it and to ponder how it may generalize to their lives outside of books, and why that would matter.
These same kids, after discussions about the importance and value of reading, may be asked to document their own reading for some length of time. This could lead to discussions about the sacrifices reading sometimes requires, considering why it might be worth it anyway.
When it comes to kids, I think one of the most important ideas about literacy that should be explored is its social role. Does reading isolate you or connect you to others? Some experts encourage kids to read at home but then to bring what they have learned or experienced from it to school to share with their peers. Other experts encourage book clubs and reading groups to get kids to connect to others through their reading. The tension between reading to escape to other places and other times and reading to relate to others is a worthwhile literacy topic for kids to study and debate.
Reading is not done for reading’s sake. Most reading is done to accomplish other purposes or goals. I don’t think we do enough to make certain that kids understand all the ways that they could use reading. If we want people to read more, we need to make sure they recognize its possibilities and value. Technology may be replacing or reducing some kinds of reading, allowing people to accomplish certain goals that in the past would have depended on reading. But there are good reasons to believe that technology cannot take the place of some kinds of reading, or that it is an imperfect replacement in others.
We need to make sure that our kids know not just that we want them to read, but why we think this is so important – and then we must make those uses of reading accessible.
References
Baier, K., Hendricks, C., Warren Gorden, K., Hendricks, J.E., & Cochran, L. (2011). College students’ textbook reading, or not! American Reading Forum Annual Yearbook, 31.
Barker, J. (2024). Why is reading important? The lifelong benefits of reading. 95 percent Group.
Bone, J. K., Bu, F., Sonke, J. K., & Fancourt, D. (2006). The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey. IScience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113288
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Hunter, J. (2003). Happiness in everyday life: The uses of experience sampling. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4, 185–199 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024409732742
Cremin, T., & Scholes, L. (2024). Reading for pleasure: Scrutinising the evidence base – benefits, tensions and recommendations. Language and Education, 38(4), 537–559. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2024.2324948
Denham, A. E. (2024). Empathy & literature. Emotion Review, 16(2), 84–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739241233601
Horowitch, R. (2026). The end of reading is here. Atlantic.
Kidd, D. C., & Castano, E. (2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science, 342(6156), 377-380. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239918
Kucker, S. C., Barr, R. F., & Perry, L. K. (2026). Videos and vocabulary: How digital media use impacts the types of words children know. Developmental science, 29(1), e70091. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70091
Lewis, D. (2009). Galaxy stress research. United Kingdom: Sussex University.
Montgomery, D. (2025). Most Americans didn’t read many books in 2025. Yougov. https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/53804-most-americans-didnt-read-many-books-in-2025
Rauschecker, A. M., Nedelec, P., Pan, S., Olaru, M., Nillo, R. M., Palmer, C. E., Pecheva, D., Dale, A. M., Jernigan, T. L., & Sugrue, L. P. (2025). Neurocognitive and brain structure correlates of reading and television habits in early adolescence. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 6235. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-88398-2
Rohm, S., Hopp, F. R., & Smit, E. G. (2022). Exposure to serial audiovisual narratives increases empathy via vicarious interactions. Media Psychology, 25(1), 106-127. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2021.1879654
St. Aubin, C., & Liedke, J. (2025). Social media and news fact sheet. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/
Wasik, B. A., Hindman, A. H., & Snell, E. K. (2016). Book reading and vocabulary development: A systematic review. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 37, 39-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2016.04.003
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