Some day soon.
Posted on 10/14/2025 2:44:19 PM PDT by Angelino97
The journal iScience recently published a study showing that the share of Americans who read books for pleasure has fallen 40 percent over the last 20 years. Unfortunately, this decline has endured for generations. For example, among high school seniors in 1976, 11.5 percent did not read a single book for pleasure; by 2021, this had risen to 41 percent.
It’s a similar situation in Britain. A recent survey revealed that 47 percent of adults do not read books by choice—roughly half the population of England. More worryingly, two-thirds of 16- to 24-year-olds describe themselves as “non-readers” or “lapsed” readers. Fewer children than ever are reading, and the number of those doing so between the ages of 8 and 10 has halved in the last 12 years.
The average American teenager spends 7 and a half hours each day gazing at screen, which accounts for approximately half of their waking lives. Teenagers live in an era of curated existence—a false and inauthentic digital reality, where they recede from experiential reality. A meaningful engagement with the real world is lost when life is mediated through screens.
The internet is not so much changing how we think but chipping away at our ability to think. The University of Southern California’s extensive Understanding America Study, shows that personality traits commonly encountered in academic psychology have changed over the past decade, with the most negative impacts visible among young people.
Data published in the Financial Times show that the character traits correlated with positive outcomes—for example, being conscientious and extroverted—are in precipitous decline among those between 16 and 39 years old. Conversely, neuroticism has increased considerably. Within this demographic, the number of individuals who agree with the assertion that they are “easily distracted” has skyrocketed.
The power of thought has been outsourced to Silicon Valley. As we become increasingly enslaved to technology, like prisoners trapped in Plato’s cave, we mistake shadows for reality. Our modern-day puppet masters are the tech elite who shape our behavior with algorithms meant to create echo chambers and promote tribalism.
There is no “marketplace of ideas” as we have been taught to understand it. Today, ideas are mediated by dopamine, clicks, and retweets. Audience capture holds content creators captive in accordance with their subscribers’ ideologies. The revolution will not be televised; it will be live-streamed. Democracy is in no danger of being overthrown, but it is being over-entertained.
Wisdom is not lost, but it is abandoned one distraction at a time. Meaningful engagement with the world seems out of the question when we are in the thrall of an internet driven by the sadistic logic of spectacle, which prioritizes immediacy and emotional impact. As a result, political debates devolve into performative outrages and soundbites, reducing complexity to simplicity. Rather than seeking to develop ourselves, we sit passively, watching our own obsolescence.
Social media, too, becomes something other than merely a means of sharing information. It is more like a hive mind, a collectivized moral system shaming individuals and enforcing norms and behavior—a digital panopticon that polices the boundaries of acceptable discourse. It is a place where self-righteous, emotionally incontinent, vindictive race baiters spew sociological ideological certainties down a drain of moral turpitude.
Thinking on your own is a forgotten skill, a relic of the past. As Pascal wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” For those ensnared in the matrix, silence feels unbearable, reflection like punishment and patience is considered a weakness.
It is not just books that we are ignoring, we also ignore each other. Robert Putnam has documented the decline of traditional, civic, religious and social organizations such as labor unions, volunteer Red Cross workers, and fraternal organizations. We’re not just bowling alone, we are alone. Neoliberalism and hyper-individualism have rendered social connection obsolete. It explains why rich westerners are depressed and atomized despite their extensive online “interaction” with others.
According to the American Perspectives Survey, the percentage of Americans without close friends has quadrupled since 1990. Those who do have friends now spend less than three hours per week with them, compared to six hours, which was the common practice a decade ago.
Participating in these kinds of communitarian activities makes us happier, increases social capital, and protects us against loneliness. Simply put, people enjoy doing things with others—not just chatting through the intermediary of a screen.
Friendship is a wonderful thing. However, it is an investment that takes time, as frightening as that may appear to Gen-Z. You are not forced to live vicariously through the admiration of strangers. There are numerous ways to digitally disconnect from the internet. I recommend joining a book club at your local church: it might help you learn while making new friends.
Yes. This is a bad thing. Very bad.
It’s moreso a reflection of indoctrination replacing education, but there’s more.
Convenience is king. Why should I put aside a week or weeks of my time to sit down and read a book?
This is part of the reason why there has been a rise of audio books. Convenience is king. People aren’t giving up necessarily on new or good content, they’re giving up on moldy oldy ways of consuming it.
That’s why we(I) need to record into audio as much of the works of the Founding Fathers as I can, so we can leverage the advantage of convenience.
Books are dead. It isn’t the internet or video games or anything like that that did it. Convenience is king.
If we read this article does it count as reading?
I was such a bookworm in my youth & even when I was raising my kids. I could get lost in books & had a hard time coming back to reality. Over the last 30 yrs I’ve mainly been reading articles on the internet about current events & the history behind them. I need to stay present & aware because the world is in such a precarious position these days & I want to be prepared for the worst so I can help my family & friends who have deliberately tuned out.
It is also a sign of civilization collapse.
I think it's more the shortening attention span.
Younger people just don't enjoy reading as much, whether on paper, ebook, or audio book. Not if the book is long.
I read that even movie watching is in decline, with young people's leisure time more devoted to TikTok videos.
I graduated in 1979. I read a lot (at least in my estimation) compared to my peers.
And that continued into my forties.
Television was generally a vast waste land and in my teens the one TV in our house was not in my control.
When I moved out I could not afford cable or a decent TV.
When I got a decent job I was on rotating shifts and I did not bother with TV because I could not watch any serial type programming because I would miss about everyother episode.
I would watch the occasional movie but that was about it.
Books were much more convenient to my life style.
Once on-demand and streaming became available TV became more to my liking.
I haven't read a book in about 4 years.
But I do read a lot of news and articles.
I love to read. It’s far more relaxing than spending time on the computer.
My kids read a LOT when they were little. Don’t know about now since they are adults.
I met an exchange student recently who is very smart and astute, and said she’d never read a book in her life yet. Apparently, it’s all computer.
How tragic.
It’s worse than that. The high school seniors are lying.
>> I recommend joining a book club at your local church: it might help you learn while making new friends.<<
Great idea!
Reading will make a comeback if the internet ever goes down for an extended period of time.
And sometimes I wonder if that wouldn’t be the best thing that could happen to this country.
Some day soon.
Sadly, I cannot read books as I used to due to my eyes, and eBooks don’t work for me.
I really miss reading. Badly. I primarily listen to audiobooks now (and have dictated them as well) but it isn’t quite the same.
I miss becoming totally engrossed in a book, only to realize it is 3 AM and I should have gone to bed hours ago.
But reading puts content into your brain in quite a different way than reading does. The two are not the same, and your brain doesn’t treat them the same.
Like you, I also read Internet content to stay aware, but I depend now on audiobooks to build my base of fundamental knowledge for reference.
I read Playboy for the articles.
I have not watched any tv this year, I think I turned it on a few times.
I don’t have cable, but I do have an antenna
one of my children came over about a month ago and laughed at me cause the tv was on the same channel he had left it on the last time he came over which was months before that.
I have read over 150 books in the last 4 months, I flop on the couch, grab my kindle and go.
a cool thing is that I have Logitech media server on a Pi hooked to my stereo and I can control it using the experimental browser built into the kindle so I can adjust music and volume.
I have been a life long book reader, mostly non-fiction; history, science, etc., and still enjoy holding a real book in my hands and turning the pages. I average about three to four books a month and I happy to report that my 34 year-old daughter does the same. This is aside from all the news and information articles I read on the internet like FR.
I bought a few boxes of playboys from the 80s and 90s
I mostly got them for the advertisements, but I need to go back through and read some of the articles.
Probably I need to find an old stash of Omni Magazines for the articles also
During my 25 year career in IT I never read for pleasure. I had to read so much to stay current and with new hardware and software. I always had since grade school and all through my 20 year Army career, especially overseas. Since I have retired I sometimes read a book a day.
TL;DR
/sarcasm
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