Fewer People Are Reading for Fun, Study Finds | From 2003 to 2023, the share of Americans who read for pleasure fell 40 percent, a sharp decline that is part of a continuing downward trend.
nytimes.com
I still read for enjoyment, usually before bed to keep the habit. But it's definitely decreased since my job includes lots of reading and writing. Similar with programming for fun, I still do it sometimes but the desire to engage for enjoyment is much lower since working professionally on software. I went to a book/art fair a couple weeks ago for local authors and it was very busy so that gives me some hope for the medium.
Im definately part of this one. I read voraciously up until college when I had to lay off of it during the school year or it interfered with studies to much. Was still my favorite pass time till the new millenia when the internet sorta took over (work n life and junk is maybe a bit to blame given my first decent job and getting married). Last book I read was the last book robert jordan wrote in the wheel of time series. Maybe something after that but even at the point I read that I had borrowed it from a work friend I shared an office with when he finished it. So I was way slowed down and figure that was 2005 or 2006 since he picked up the book as soon as it was available in hardcover. Oh man its been 20 years since I was big on reading. Going to be half my life soon enough.
Yeah, we can tell…
Unfortunately it’s not just a US problem. It’s more of a general issue. People ‘read’ a lot, but generally the wrong things. Like social media. And it’s causing people to lose their ‘reading muscles’ so to speak.
When I first got online in 1995, forum posts were much longer and more insightful. These days you see a lot of ‘tl;dr’ attitudes.
In my opinion, reading is a fundamental part of the human experience and important in people’s general development. Reading needs to be encouraged if possible, enforced if necessary. But there’s a lot of resistance to that.
can you write a tldr for this pls
Judging by your president, I think 40% fewer Americans read. For fun or otherwise.
I started working sixty hours a week to make ends meet. Hard to spare the time.
I "read" on "the internet" to "make myself miserable"
It's a doom-page-turner!
It's gotten really silly but I'm too invested at this point
Maybe it’s just me but I lack the free time to get meaningful progress, if I’m lucky maybe 2-3 chapters a week by the time works and housekeeping is done. It often feels unrewarding to need to look back and remember the plot by the time I get back to the book
I loathe sluggish pace reading where I lose the plot inbetween sessions.
I love binge reading a book but rarely can.
I already read a gazillion emails, documents, specs, and whatnot and the same braincells are often cooked.
Similarly, I just can't deal with physical jigsaw anymore. Same braincells used in work-related pattern recognition in troubleshooting, that I find it unsatisfying.
Try audio books. I used to not enjoy them but I've come around for similar reasons as you described.
Yes my issue is by the time i have time to read its nearly time to go to bed, and i find having the light on and staying in a comfortable reading position delays my sleep too much unless its something really dense, in which case i don't end up retaining any of it.
Get yourself a kobo and both of those issues disappear. Also, you get free books if you are willing to sail the high seas, which is nice.
I discovered AO3 2 years ago and have over 400 bookmakers that I'm actively reading when they update. Don't worry everyone I'll binge read for the rest of you
I read AoE3, and was curious how that had nothing to do with books. And AoE2 was the best.
How do you even track over 400 completely different storylines & ships? This is an amazing feat.
By being interested.
Don't ask about my 漫画 list. I have more WNs to read.
A decade ago I used to go through 3 books a week. Now I might read 3 a year. The world's gone to such shit that fiction almost feels too quaint to be enjoyable. I know that's not logical, but it's how it feels...and it's awful.
I read because it's nice to be in a differently reality for a bit. I generally do fantasy, because the world's immersive and it's fun to get lost in. My buddy said he's reading The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy, and I had it in the list, and it's definitely not the escape that The Stormlight Archive was.
As with others here, I also do the audiobook thing. Reading is reserved for the time before bed, 15-30m or so, and audiobooks are for when you're engaged in something that doesn't require your full attention, like operating heavy machinery or power tools.
when you're engaged in something that doesn't require your full attention, like operating heavy machinery or power tools.
Jesus that sounds horrible. I mean, yeah, me too, but still...
I used to burn through books, one Christmas my mum complained that she could've got a refund on a book I got if I hadn't folded a page to keep track of where I was because I finished it by the time we were having dinner. Then school told me I was only allowed to read books from a certain reading level they'd given me for English class, and I had to complete an evaluation test to make sure I'd understood it before I could move up to the next level. I can barely get through 3 pages at a time now because that school program killing my love of reading.
If you're a SciFi fan, read the expanse series. It'll reinvigorate your love of reading again. At least, it did for me.
I'm realizing in my adulthood just how much school has hurt my impression of reading.
Throughout most of my life, I was so used to reading something and then having someone else explain it to me, that I never had the confidence to go off and read things on my own.
School sucks. We need a radical redesign
School also really killed my love of reading
I always had a book, sometimes several books, that I was reading on my own, and I read well above my grade level. But my high school went on a really big reading kick while I was there. Basically every class had books assigned to read at one point or another, I think even some of the math classes did. One homeroom period a week was dedicated to SSR (sustained silent reading) where you had to be reading something, you weren't allowed to do homework, be on the computer, etc.
So they did a really great job of turning reading from something I genuinely really enjoyed to something that was a dreaded chore.
I still read occasionally, but nothing like I used to. Some of that's being an adult with a busy schedule
But I definitely see plenty of space in my schedule where I could read and just don't. It's harder to get myself into the headspace where I want to read anymore.
I almost got myself back on track a few years ago, unfortunately it was just as COVID hit and I had just started reading The Road, which I was really enjoying, but with all of the shortages from supply lines being disrupted it was hitting a little too close to home.
I'm almost back on track now, but I doubt I'll ever get back to where I was before high school murdered my love of reading.
I "read" a lot. Just audio books. I don't usually get time to sit down and read, but I do a lot of driving and other mind numbing chores. For that, I "read"
Same. Audiobooks are so wonderful for doubling up mindless activities like walking or driving or mowing. I sometimes remember where part of a book was by where I was walking when I listened to it.
Even so, I try to make an effort to read physical, paper books regularly. I'm pretty tsundoku though, or was until I realized it and stopped accumulating books.
More other types of entertainment existing now.
I don't have the mental bandwidth to read Mich. I'm always exausted
Audiobooks and a speaker headband got me back into reading.
If I have problems sleeping at least I get a story out of it. If I'm constantly replaying the same chapter it's because I'm sleeping well. I'll do a couple books/month this way.
I do a ton of recreational reading, but it's mostly articles and comments here instead of books.
Weird, I've been reading a lot more this year. But I do go through phases:
Binge Watch TV/Movies
Binge Reading
Binge Gaming
I'm in the middle piece right now. Probably 6 or 7 books in the past couple of months? Started my first read of Roadside Picnic last night, should finish it tonight.
That makes a lot of sense.
This might make some of you uncomfortable, but it seems like this coincides with women's adoption of tech and social media.
Women already read at way higher rates than men, but since so many of them are swept up in the social media hysteria, they literally don't have time or patience to do it any more.
People are developing vastly different forms of entertainment. I play games, i would rather do that than read a book. It is more engaging to me to interact with the author's imagination in real time.
As someone who has played video games most of their life and came up with every excuse in the book to avoid reading, I'm letting you know that you should try to develop an appreciation for it.
It will help you out in the long run, and give you something to do in your free time that, to be frank, doesn't make you seem like such a loser.
I'm just being honest and hoping you can learn something from my mistakes.
I do appreciate books and people that read, I have tried it and I know its just not for me. I also do not watch movies or TV, I dont enjoy jigsaw puzzles or puzzle boxes, and I loathe anything happening in the ocean. Im aware of who I am as a person and I know what I do and do not like.
Video games are not a loser medium, that way of thinking has nearly died out in the last 15 years and the industry is probably the biggest form of entertainment in the world, for a reason.
I got back into reading in the last couple of years. I was already reading a bit more, but it cranked up when I got a job with a lot of downtime. Plus, finding a topic that is endlessly interesting helps: first two-hundred years of christianity. (I’m an atheist and a history nerd.)
Gmork would be pleased.
There's so much worse happening to society, so many more important things the media and "studies" could be pushing.
Why isn't this article about the growth in the wage gap between lowest paid and highest at companies between those years.
Why isn't it about the fact we're in a new dark age of war where starvation (Gaza) and chemical weapons (Ukraine) are being used.
"Wouldn't it be nice if people read more"
Yes, but shut the fuck up and turn your media clout to something more important. Fix the quality of life and justice issues.
The Neo-Liberal force of the media and academia are largely misapplied to both-siding Capitalism and the Capitalist Fascism it's produced, and I'm sick of it.
Your post is why I read.
We can't extrapolate data from "Americans" to say "people in general" like this title does.
Americans and declining education is not a new phenomenon nor is it global. Americans are also not role models for anything.
True, on the other hand US is often a canary indicator. Often, not always.
In general, I have heard many variations of “people don’t read anymore” soooo many times, I wonder why it’s still news. Yeah, people read less books, more blog posts, more stuff on the internet and so on. It has significant effects on long term information connection, creation and maintenance of neural patterns and so on. Either we restructure the internet or that’s how it’s going to go…
Reclassify doom scrolling as recreational.
I solve problems people.