The debates over e-readers and physical books, or whether audiobooks count as reading, pale in comparison to the real problem at hand: where have all the readers gone? And what do we risk losing if we let reading go the path of needlepoint?
In the Atlantic, Rose Horowitch offers a thoughtful description of college students’ growing inability to read. According to the article, in 2022, 40% of high school students had not read a single book for fun in the previous year, nor are students being asked to read full books in school. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, only about 38% of adults had read a book or a short story in 2022.
Compounding the problem, attention spans have shrunk. Researchers have found that the average person now has a 47-second attention span, a third of what it was in 2002. Books, unlike algorithm-driven social media, do not reinvent themselves to capture our attention. A good author can only do so much. Reading can also provide a dopamine rush and a sense of accomplishment, but at a slower pace than an entertaining reel or the latest conspiracy theory on YouTube.
Misinformation and conspiracy theories run rampant in our political and cultural discourse. A longer attention span and improved cognitive abilities developed through reading allow us to take back some of our analytical power. As artificial intelligence increases in capability, the importance of our ability to decipher what is real and what is not real grows exponentially. In her piece, “Why Kids Aren’t Falling in Love With Reading,” Katherine Marsh observes, “Critical reading is an important skill, especially for a generation bombarded with information, much of it unreliable or deceptive.”
In today’s schools, students are taught to dissect a sentence but not how to finish a book. Teaching for standardized tests moved away from analyzing full texts to offering students smaller, digestible pieces of information to evaluate. Artificial intelligence similarly translates large amounts of information into smaller, more easily understood concepts. Relevant information may be communicated, but the experience of learning is lost. Just like a nutritious meal, full texts may take longer to digest but will continue having positive effects over time.
Books not only expose readers to different perspectives, a somewhat trite observation, but in a more meaningful way, they allow us to form a kinship with the characters as we experience life — with its joy, suffering, and triumph — through their emotional responses. This is part of what Marsh describes as “the spell of reading” and “the intrinsic pleasure of taking a narrative journey, making an emotional connection with a character (including ones different from [oneself]), and wondering what will happen next — then finding out.” Reading fiction, in particular, can boost individuals’ social-cognitive ability or the ability to empathize.
Reading is seen as a solitary activity, yet it actually can meet another deep need in our culture: community. About half of American adults report feeling lonely, and a large percentage of those adults are young adults. Book clubs, whether online or in-person, are a classic way of reading, or forgetting to read, in a group. Reese Witherspoon’s book club supplies regular book recommendations and ideas for starting groups, while Goodreads offers readers the ability to follow their friends’ reading decisions and write their own reviews. Simply deciding to read a book at the same time as a friend, even without formal discussion, and sharing recommendations or thoughts on books can build a deeper connection, something only 39% of adults say they have.
Although I hope to convince you to read more, the same argument I use against social media was once used against novels. J.T. Crane wrote a book outlining his thoughts on the entertainments of the day in 1869, titled Popular Amusements. He observed, “A whole generation of young people are growing up, to whom solid books are unknown, to whom the great historic names of the past are but a sound, and whose ignorance of the world of fact is poorly compensated by their acquaintance with the world of dreams … If your lot in life is such that little time can be given to intellectual culture, do not waste an hour on the idle dreams of the novelists.” Instead, Crane recommends intellectually and morally formative books such as the Bible, biographies of accomplished figures, and history.
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Today, morally formative books still abound in the form of religious texts and self-help books, as well as those presenting a specific social agenda, such as Jordan Peterson’s or Ibram X. Kendi’s work. However, lighter fare is firmly entrenched in the cultural experience. Colleen Hoover and Sarah J. Maas offer explicit romances and young adult fiction like Hunger Games and Teen Wolf, which have inspired blockbusters and a television show. Some books offer a richer intellectual experience than others, but dusting off the reading muscles might require starting with a beach read.
As the weather turns and social media fills with images of pumpkins, fireplaces, and inordinate amounts of plaid, consider pausing the consumption of images. Put the phone down and pick up a book or turn on the audio version. Challenge yourself to read books from all over the world or the full list of the 388 books referenced in Gilmore Girls. Even if you fall asleep before you turn a page, Americans are also facing a sleep shortage, so you probably need that, too.
Rebecca Richards is the director of the Fund for Academic Renewal, the philanthropic advisory service of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
