Teen reading slumps to worst this century due to surge in screen time

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

jwrallie wrote: post #31

zug_zug wrote: post #5

Well for whatever it's worth, I feel like I understand why. At least when I was in school, nobody really made a very persuasive case for why reading was important (which I think it is) and I'd routinely get assigned books like Animal Farm or whatever and be told like "Spend X hours reading this thing and learn some profound lesson about life." And I'd just be like, "What? This book cannot prove anything, other than o…

It’s just the context. I grew up in a different culture and we all hated being forced to read at school, just different books. I enjoyed reading Animal Farm but it was something I picked up by myself, and read on my own terms.

Post by thijson » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #21

stonogo wrote: post #16

Same category error as always. "Screen time" is meaningless noise. They could be spending eight hours a day in the Kindle app reading classics. A good-faith study would evaluate what the kids are doing, not the tools they're using to do it.

> They could be spending eight hours a day in the Kindle app reading classics Have you been around kids recently? I think we all know what they're doing on the phone, and it's not The Great Gatsby .

Post by thijson » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #6

imagine what happens for a generation when you normalize access to gambling to a population with zero self-control but just like most states took the billions in smoking settlements and used it for everything else but to stop smoking, you can guess what they are going to do with the gambling settlements