Report finds ‘shocking and dispiriting’ fall in children reading for pleasure
www.theguardian.com
National Literacy Trust finds only 35% of eight to 18-year-olds enjoy reading in their spare time, a sharp drop on last year to the lowest figure yet recorded

Summary

A National Literacy Trust (NLT) survey reveals that children’s enjoyment of reading is at its lowest in 19 years, with only 34.6% of eight- to 18-year-olds saying they enjoy reading in their free time.

This marks an 8.8 percentage point drop from last year, part of a declining trend since 2016.

Reading frequency has also hit a historic low, and a significant gender gap persists, with only 28.2% of boys versus 40.5% of girls enjoying reading.

The NLT calls for a government taskforce to address these declines, warning that “the futures of a generation are being put at risk.”

  • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    16·
    5 hours ago

    Reading fiction is something I can only do when I’m calm, relaxed and have no worries. That is not a state I have experienced for like thirty years.

    Maybe if we raised children in a world that wasn’t a complete dumpster fire they would be able to read for hours at a time.

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      2 hours ago

      I tried to read fiction. hell, I even tried to read fiction I read 20 years ago.

      I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t focus on the story.

      I read Isekai manga now, and I’m waiting for the sweet release of death to take me to another world where I don’t have to put up with this bullshit.

      I just want a nice quiet existence with one, maybe two, cat girls and go on fun adventures to hot springs with them. maybe farm a bit, build a small village.

      no phones, no computers, no bullshit fascist fuck heads trying to rule the world.

  • thejml@lemm.eeEnglish
    291·
    14 hours ago

    I know personally my enjoyment of reading dropped like a rock in my tweens & teens. Too much schoolwork and over analyzing of books in school got me burned out. I made up for it in my late 20s-30s though.

    My daughter has been better so far in this regard, but now that she’s in high school I can tell she’s getting closer to mirroring my feelings. She’s switched to Manga/graphic novels instead of long form novels and that’s helped a bit, but we’ll see if that keeps up in the years to come.

    • The Snark Urge@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      13 hours ago

      Teenage years are stressful, there’s plenty to hope for that it’ll pass. Look for solid page turners tuned to her interests and drop a copy at the right moment later on.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    2·
    11 hours ago

    Not just in the UK. In the U.S. too. We have never been able to get our daughter interested in reading. We read to her every night when she was a kid, but once she learned to read, she wasn’t interested in reading or us reading to her. She can read. She has no reading disabilities. When she’s assigned a book in school, she has no issue reading it and doing tests on it and such.

    But reading just doesn’t interest her in the slightest. It breaks her librarian mother’s heart, but nothing seems to convince her.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
      6·
      10 hours ago

      Some people need a reason to read, some knowledge or skill to be gained, and aren’t into just reading for reading’s sake. I’ll never read Harry Potter or most other fiction, but I’ll definitely binge some electronics engineering and programming reference books. Doesn’t mean I hate reading. It just has to be useful to me. I have to walk away with the feeling of having gained info that I didn’t have before.

      That’s probably why I don’t play many videogames either.

  • Optional@lemmy.worldEnglish
    73·
    13 hours ago

    It serves The Powers That Be for us to not like reading. We should read just enough to consume and accept contract terms. That’s it. Anything else is dangerous.

  • CanadaPlus@futurology.todayEnglish
    3·
    13 hours ago

    Hmm. I wonder if the internet’s benefits to literacy are starting to dissipate too, as video-based services become really popular.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
    21·
    11 hours ago

    not surprising. Reading was all I did in my youth but as media got better and better and more available I read less and at the start of the millenia that basically became nearly zero. Only entertainment reading I do is stuff like this really.

  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    99·
    13 hours ago

    We don’t cry about people no longer writing with a feather quill.

    It’s shocking and dispiriting that people assume reading is inherently “better” than the alternatives.