Last week, Rose Horowitch published a splashy Atlantic article titled “The End of Reading is Here.” (Ironically, given the subject matter, it weighed in at over 8,500 words.)
Horowitch’s argument, which elaborates on similar concerns recently raised by commentators such as James Marriott, is that distracting digital technology has led to a sudden and radical reduction in reading.
Here are just some of the data she cites to back up this claim:
- Less than half of all adults reported having read a book of any kind in 2022. Only 38% read a novel or short story.
- The proportion of American adults who read for pleasure on any given day has fallen from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023, while the proportion who read to a child is down to 2%.
- Over 60% of high school seniors struggle, to varying degrees, with interpreting text.
- Nearly 30% of American adults cannot paraphrase a multipage text (representing a 50% increase from a decade ago).
- Between 1984 and today, the proportion of 13-year-olds who said they “rarely or never” read for fun rose from 8% to 29%.
- (To be sure, book sales have been holding steady in recent years, but as Horowitch notes, this potentially obscures a shift in which a small percentage of serious readers are consuming more books, compensating for an overall drop in people who read regularly.)
- And so on…
The key question is whether these reductions matter, or if they just represent a normal evolution of communication technology, similar to how fewer people listen to the radio than they did a century ago.
Horowitch argues for the former stance, noting that reading plays a critical and privileged role in the human experience:
“The advent of reading and writing transformed society. It altered people’s consciousness and politics, along with the intellectual feats they were capable of. The decline of reading will bring about changes of the same magnitude. It will affect our innermost thoughts, our society’s politics and culture, and how we tell the history of our civilization.”
Those who read my recent New York Times op-ed on cognitive fitness know that I fervently agree with this conclusion. I recently finished reading (!) Walter Ong’s classic, Orality and Literacy, which further convinced me that essentially every cultural attribute that we celebrate – from human rights, to logic, to progress, to the very notion of an independent self – are conceptual children born from the mind-shaping power of the written word.
Literacy is not simply a technology, but is instead, in some sense, the technology that enabled the cognitive world we currently take for granted. When we spend less time grappling with words, we’re taking a step backward, which helps explain why James Marriott titled his upcoming book on this phenomenon, The New Dark Ages.
As a technology theorist, I’m often accused of being reactionary or overly conservative in my analysis of new tools. But when it comes to the digital assault on literacy, the concerns I share with Horowitch and Marriott seem self-evidently justified.
But what should we do about all of this?
As I argued in my op-ed, one obvious response is to tackle this mental decline today similarly to how we tackled the decline in our physical health in the second half of the last century: by embracing specific routines around information consumption designed to arrest this slide away from advanced literacy. We should treat highly distracting digital garbage like junk food – something we largely avoid – and purposefully schedule a non-trivial amount of time each day to read, write, and self-reflect, just as we now dedicate time to walking, jogging, and weight lifting.
“An astonishing wealth of information and wisdom has been bequeathed to us,” writes Horowitch in the conclusion to her article. “What we’ll do with this inheritance is up to us.”
I agree. It’s time to get up and take action.
“Literacy is not simply a technology, but is instead, in some sense, the technology that enabled the cognitive world we currently take for granted.”
Words allow us to build things far larger than any individual could achieve alone. Through communication, we extend ourselves beyond our own minds, our thoughts go beyond our bodies. We store them in language, pass them on, and let others develop them further without needing to be even physically present (I stand on the shoulders of giants). Best example: a single book by Isaac Newton reshaped not only our understanding of the world, but also reshape the world (for good and bad). Other generations getting familiar with his thoughts written as words, created more advanced ideas, which lead us to space rockets, cars and internet. The same with Darwin’s book on natural selection, or those four papers written by Albert Einstein.
Written language also allows complex ideas to be spread around societies, to contemplate these ideas and improve them. Without that we will be shaped by emotions: fear, anger
I read once a study that books, and novels in particular, significantly deepen our capacity for empathy.
The benefits of books are so vast that it is difficult to even imagine a world in which they return to being a niche product. Words keep us united, divided we fall.
Ps I really have trouble to digest that only 2% of American parents read to their children. In Germany it is 60%. Is this number really correct?
I wonder if there’s an ambiguity there. All it says in the article is that 2% of ADULTS read to a child on a given day. I imagine if we selected out from the group of adults the ones who care for small children, the percentage would be substantially higher. Maybe not 60%, but probably close. I’m a parent of small children, with lots of friends who are parents of small children. All of us read to them every day, and all of the parenting advice suggests reading as a good thing to do, and a good activity to incorporate into bedtime routines, etc.
If 20-25% of Americans have children in the age of 0-8 (https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/glance.asp)*. This means that it would be 8-10% of American parents, who read to their small children.
*I was an optimist and I assumed that children from the age of 8 read already by themselves (although I still occasionally read to my 12 y.o., especially, if I want to bring her some more complex ideas).
Cal,
I share your diagnosis and Horowitch’s. I’ve been watching the capacity to sustain attention on a text fade for years, and it’s not a neutral evolution—it’s a thinning of our inner lives.
That said, I think your analogy with physical exercise needs a small caveat. Scheduling time to read is necessary, but it’s not enough. I’ve seen smart people fail at reading 30 minutes a day. Why? Because they tried to do it in the same physical and mental space where they used to consume “digital garbage.” The phone was still there, an arm’s length away. Willpower alone can’t compete with that level of accessibility.
Speaking of phones: thanks to you, I read How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Anne Price a while back, and I put it into practice. I even reached out to her, and was met with a kindness I didn’t expect. It was a reminder that behind every book there are real people who genuinely want to help us live better. But the intention isn’t enough—the environment has to change.
My experience tells me the first step isn’t “read more”—it’s redesigning the environment. Take the phone out of the equation before opening the book. Create a corner where distraction has no entry. It’s easier to build a habit when you don’t have to fight it every minute.
I also believe how you start matters. Before reading, ask yourself: “What am I looking for here?” That question, asked with intention, prepares the ground for a deeper reading. It’s not about piling up pages, but digesting ideas.
And finally, the point that concerns me most: your statistic about 2% of parents reading to their children. If that number is accurate, it’s a warning. Because the habit of reading isn’t inherited genetically—it’s transmitted through the daily gesture of sharing a story. There’s no better way to teach reading than reading with them.
So yes, we need to act. But intelligently. First, the environment. Then, intention. And if there are children around, lead by example.
Thanks for opening the debate.
All the best.
An interesting post. And I veryt much value all you contribute and do— thank you fot it.
As to “literacy”— I would encourage a more critical engagement with Ong’s work, particularly his concept of “literacy.” There is a substantial body of scholarship that questions the assumption that literacy should be equated primarily with the written word.
For example, Australian Aboriginal songlines clearly demonstrate that highly complex knowledge—including geography, law, history, ecology, and culture—can be preserved and transmitted without alphabetic writing. Likewise, the Inca khipu (quipu) challenges the assumption that information must be be encoded in written text to constitute a sophisticated record-keeping system.
I also think it’s worth remembering that the term literacy itself has a history. It has at times been used to construct hierarchies, privilege certain forms of knowledge over others, and reinforce classist or colonial assumptions about whose knowledge “counts.” For that reason, it’s always good to remain conscious and critical of how the term is being used. You’ll find a substantial body of scholarship critiquing Ong from these perspectives, and engaging with some of that work I think is important when you have such a big audience. (I say this as a fellow Dartmouth grad, anonymous here with a second email).
Here below from Chat – take or leave but worth digging into—
I think the criticism is legitimate and widely represented in scholarship, but it doesn’t necessarily invalidate Ong’s contributions.
Ong’s Orality and Literacy (1982) was enormously influential in showing that communication technologies shape thought, memory, and social organization. His distinction between oral and literate cultures has been foundational in media studies, rhetoric, communication, and digital humanities.
However, many later scholars have argued that his framework can:
Overstate the divide between “oral” and “literate” cultures.
Risk implying that literacy is a developmental or evolutionary advance over orality.
Privilege alphabetic writing as the primary marker of sophisticated cognition.
Underestimate the complexity of Indigenous and other non-textual systems of knowledge transmission.
For example, scholars working in Indigenous studies, anthropology, and literacy studies have pointed to systems such as Australian Aboriginal songlines, Andean khipu, and Haudenosaunee wampum belts as evidence that complex knowledge, law, history, and memory can be encoded and transmitted in ways that do not fit narrow definitions of writing.
At the same time, it’s also fair to acknowledge that Ong was writing within the scholarship of his era, and his work is often more nuanced than some of its popular interpretations. He did not simply claim that oral cultures were “inferior”; in fact, he admired many qualities of oral cultures and argued that they possessed different cognitive and social strengths. Some criticisms are directed as much at how his work has been interpreted and applied as at Ong’s own arguments.
So, if I were commenting on the blog, I wouldn’t say Ong is “wrong.” I’d say that his work should be read alongside later critiques that broaden our understanding of literacy and recognize multiple forms of knowledge and communication. That’s a balanced, academically grounded position.
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Thanks for all you do. We are all learning, me too. Found you as I am considering moving most of my files to a EHD and “just” keeping current work; thinking this mioght be helpful and wondering your thoughts.
Agreed that reading is THE technology that enables many other technologies. I’m concerned about the decrease of people reading. You mentioned this on a podcast one, that the very act of interpreting text on a page slows your brain down and builds its muscles in a way that promotes understanding and critical thinking. I’m concerned about the decrease in critical thinking as well, and I think it goes hand in hand with the decrease in reading.
Some of my favorite moments in life are laying down reading with my girlfriend.
The article raises an important question, but perhaps “reading” needs to be defined more carefully.
I read fewer books today than I once did, and I have never been particularly interested in novels. At the same time, my work requires me to read, analyze and write for much of the day. It would therefore be difficult to describe my life as one in which reading has disappeared.
My last two books were about how Switzerland became wealthy and the history of trade wars since the Middle Ages. Both changed how I understand current economic and political developments. For me, this is where reading matters: not in the number of books completed, but in the sustained engagement with an argument that changes one’s mental model.
The real danger may therefore not be the decline of books or novels as such. It is the loss of our ability to follow complex reasoning over time, connect ideas and tolerate conclusions that cannot be reduced to a short summary.
Perhaps the question is not whether we still read, but whether we still read deeply enough to let what we read change how we think.