USA no longer reads a book
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When's the last time you settled down with a good book, just because you enjoyed it? A new survey shows reading as a pastime is becoming dramatically less popular in the U.S., which correlates with an increased consumption of digital media. The survey was carried out by researchers from the University of Florida and charts a 33 percent decrease in daily reading for pleasure across the years 2003-2023, based on responses from 236,270 US persons.
"This is not just a small dip -- it's a sustained, steady decline of about 3.3 percent per every year," says Jill Sonke, director for the Center for the Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida. "It's significant, and it's deeply concerning." The number of US people reading for pleasure every day peaked in 2004 at 33 percent, the researchers found, but by 2023 this was down to 16 percent. There was a silver lining though: those people who are still reading are reading for slightly longer on average.
Reading habits aren't changing across the board.
>The drops in reading for pleasure were higher in Black Americans,
especially those with lower income, education levels, and who lived outside of cities.
That speaks to problems beyond the rise of smartphones, tablets, and other screens, according to the researchers. Different life situations are leading to disparities in accessibility that don't help promote reading as a pastime. "Our digital culture is certainly part of the story," says Sonke. "But there are also structural issues -- limited access to reading materials, economic insecurity and a national decline in leisure time. If you're working multiple jobs or dealing with transportation barriers in a rural area, a trip to the library may just not be feasible."
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113288
"This is not just a small dip -- it's a sustained, steady decline of about 3.3 percent per every year," says Jill Sonke, director for the Center for the Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida. "It's significant, and it's deeply concerning." The number of US people reading for pleasure every day peaked in 2004 at 33 percent, the researchers found, but by 2023 this was down to 16 percent. There was a silver lining though: those people who are still reading are reading for slightly longer on average.
Reading habits aren't changing across the board.
>The drops in reading for pleasure were higher in Black Americans,
especially those with lower income, education levels, and who lived outside of cities.
That speaks to problems beyond the rise of smartphones, tablets, and other screens, according to the researchers. Different life situations are leading to disparities in accessibility that don't help promote reading as a pastime. "Our digital culture is certainly part of the story," says Sonke. "But there are also structural issues -- limited access to reading materials, economic insecurity and a national decline in leisure time. If you're working multiple jobs or dealing with transportation barriers in a rural area, a trip to the library may just not be feasible."
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113288
