In the 15th century, the printing press was the machine of revolution. The impact of literary accessibility meant an irreversible spread of ideas, knowledge, and communication throughout Europe. Reading and writing were unstoppable forces because literature is inextricable from a free society. A loss of literacy has historically meant a gaping hole in independent thought, politics, and shared culture. No matter what, when we lose the capacity or ability to read and write, it has always meant something is very wrong.
This time, the warning signs are much more subtle, but nonetheless shape a concerning storm on the horizon. We are slowly disentangling ourselves from reading. From the eyes of educators to researchers to the average reality TV viewer, we are becoming a postliterate society. The changing attention economy now dictates how we receive information and communication. We are seeing a rising desire for convenience and quick rewards, buoyed by the force-feeding of social media and AI into our daily lives. In a world of constant stimulation, the act of reading is no longer something we hunger for.
In education systems, students are struggling to engage with literature. Nicholas Dames, a professor at Columbia University, has taught the required Literature Humanities class there since 1998. He has witnessed this change in reading habits directly. His students can no longer keep up with a syllabus that requires insightful reading of multiple dense books per semester. It’s a shift in the student body that goes as far back as pre-university education, to middle and high school.
Most curricula simply do not require reading entire books anymore, instead preferring literary excerpts. This is an attempt to prepare students for standardized tests, whose format requires students to read short passages and answer related questions to evaluate their comprehension. When the pressure surrounds preparation for testing, it’s not for lack of trying that students’ literacy is declining. Educators say there is just no room in their required curricula, nor enough attention span in their students, to read full length books anymore. By doing this, the education system fails the student body in terms of being prepared to engage critically with long stories — you cannot gain an understanding of themes and complex characters by reading only excerpts, as exams require. A loss of extensive time spent on analyzing longer texts means students are no longer required to come out of their comfort zones and expand their attention spans.
When people are eventually faced with full-length novels, in higher education or daily life, it’s a more insurmountable task. As always, a resounding solution is “Don’t worry – AI can do it for you.” Programs like the app Magibook provide AI summaries of typical English class novels if the words are too complex or the writing style is too confusing for the reader. This is founded on the illogical belief that, by using AI to simplify language, everyone is supposedly allowed to partake in the joy of reading. “User accessibility” is what Magibook prides itself on providing, when, really, it’s a butchering of the very concept of influential literature. The iconic opener of “A Tale of Two Cities” goes from “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” to “It was a time when things were very good and very bad.”
A 2025 study published in the journal iScience reflected the massive shift in how often we read. The American Time Use Survey analyzed data from 236,000 Americans between 2003 and 2023. The results displayed that daily reading for pleasure in the U.S. has dipped by more than 40% over the last 20 years. It’s been a slow downfall, maintaining a steady decline of about 3% each year.
In turn, those who are still committed to reading represent a small part of the population: in 2025, about 80% of all books (including audiobooks) were being read by only 20% of adults. When the act of reading is so disproportionate, reading becomes more of a subculture than a general activity. When it thrives, it does so in a niche bubble: an echo chamber of bibliophiles talking to one another.
The leading question is why literacy is changing, and it’s difficult to point fingers at one determining factor. The pandemic, shortening attention spans, the rise of screen-based media, the general decline in the quality of education — these are all potential contributors. When the infinite scroll is designed to keep our brains hooked on a dopamine rush, it feels impossible to put the phone down and turn to slower, more mindful activities.
Beyond this, economic and workforce disparities greatly affect who has the time to begin with to commit to reading. The previously mentioned Time Use Survey revealed widening gaps in literacy among participants who were Black, disabled, lower-income, or living in nonmetropolitan areas.
When the accumulation of these factors leads to 54% of adults reading below a sixth-grade level, the absence of literacy is no longer just a higher education problem — it affects quality of life, and shame is a main aspect holding back those affected from seeking resources.
For the smaller part of the population who do incorporate reading into their daily lives, the culture and conversation around reading is much more digitally centered than it used to be. The prime example: BookTok, which is a strange and paradoxical hub of the internet. It’s a community based on a shared love for reading, and a driving force in keeping the activity alive, yet always in the context of social media addiction.
Any Barnes & Noble location will have an exclusive “as seen on BookTok” shelf, often featuring the same batch of titles. In these spaces, the grounded act of holding a book and turning its pages has become desirable again, and is reviving physical book sales. BookTok both brings back older works and sparks buzz and conversation for upcoming releases. It drives publishing decisions, as authors are encouraged to sell their work by maintaining an online presence.
The TikTok Creator Academy page advises “building a presence means grabbing attention — and doing it fast.” Being successful now requires the effort of social engagement more than ever.
Internet-famous readers say they read 100-plus books a year, then reveal that they in fact spend half the reading process skimming over long paragraphs, hardly digesting the words in their anticipation of the next attention-grabbing moment. They openly admit that they don’t pay attention to plot holes nor come up with their own theories while reading.
BookTok also holds a mirror to the increasingly noticeable overconsumption encouraged by social media. New book hauls, home library tours, and “books bought vs. read” are formats that run rampant. Trends fueled by excessive purchases create an image of the aesthetic, voracious reader. A house teeming with books becomes the ideal scenario to prove yourself.
Books are reduced to tropes — phrases like “enemies to lovers” are buzzwords downplaying nuanced themes. It becomes difficult for BookTok creators to break out of the tropes and genres they initially associated themselves with. If they branch out into diverse literature, they may lose their fan base as a result.
It’s not that we aren’t writing important things anymore, it’s that it’s becoming too easy to fall into a blanket of mediocrity and ambiguity. As a result, spaces like BookTok become less about reading and more about the performance of reading.
I’m in no place to judge anything people read. Whatever open door that gets you into reading again is enough. We are already losing our spark for reading — shaming people who try to reignite it for their choices won’t help. Not every read has to be a think piece. Reading for pleasure also includes settling down with a fantasy novel (or, God forbid, a beach-read romance) that won’t make your brain hurt.
The beautiful thing about reading is that your skills improve — you get to access higher levels of writing. You get to read works that expand your viewpoint and challenge your frames of thought. It’s a conversation between the author, the text, and the reader. Reading can be hard, but it’s supposed to be hard.
The astronomer and scholar Carl Sagan said in his documentary series “Cosmos” that “books break the shackles of time,” expanding our minds and worldviews. That’s important especially now, when oppressors want us to be less conscious and more ignorant, keeping us silent and separate. In moments of darkness, spreading and accessing knowledge is one of our greatest forms of resistance.
