Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows • Hacker News Board

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#301

Post by superxpro12 » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #280

kuerbel wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what they are doing on the device, 100%. When I was a kid I got a GameBoy, one of those old red ones, played tetris or Mario Land for an hour and after that it was boring and I did something else. Got an N64 which was already way more engaging, but even then after an hour or two I was done. It just got worse the more sophisticated games became. And now we have infinite videos and content, infinite scrol…

I think the internet is the real problem. Infinite choices, and sites designed specificly to keep you hooked. I feel like addictivity falls a lot when you are stuck with just offline things.

the internet isnt the problem, its the focus on artificial engagement. It's found everywhere now, and its toxic.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#302

Post by pbalau » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

Schlagbohrer wrote: post #189

larrik wrote: post #33

It's worse than this. I have kids in school. Our school system is one of the top in Connecticut, which is the quintessential "school" state (if any rich kid on TV goes away to school, it's probably to CT). These kids (all of them, not mine) can't really read. Not like when I was young. (I'm not even old! I graduated in the 2000's!) They certainly can't write. They have no stamina to do an essay or a test like when I…

At the risk of a flamewar I want to say that I still don't accept audiobooks as a 100% drop in replacement for actually reading. I know a lot of millenials my age who insist that listening to an audiobook while is completely the same as actually sitting down and focusing without distractions on a paper book for hours. But it isn't! Firstly, much is lost without seeing the formatting of the page, and without being abl…

I disagree. I don't read because I like to read books, I don't listen to audiobooks because I like listening to audiobooks, I don't talk to people because I like talking with people, heck, I don't take pictures because I like taking pictures.

I like stories and all of the above are simply ways of hoarding more stories. The way I'm getting the story is not important, the story is.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#303

Post by Tade0 » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #293

MisterTea wrote: post #291

I was at a friends house for a party and their kids are not on screens. They are very active in their children's lives which influences their children's behavior. The kids were busy running around and playing with the other kids who came. They have a back yard and enjoy playing outdoors. They play card and board games. Both are on teams, one soccer, the other, baseball. They have a Switch and streaming TV but don't s…

This is true, to an extent, but one missing variable is peers, and the — sometimes outsized — influence they have relative to parents. Some parents limit screen time and delay giving their children phones, but if their peers all have phones and spend much of their time on screens, the parents’ influence may lose out. In your example, if the friends that came over pulled out their phones and spent most of their time o…

Peer groups sort themselves to an extent. It's never everyone that does X or is into Y.

I recall being immediately out when one of the boys asked which football team I support, to which I replied "none". So I got sorted to the much smaller group of kids who are not into that and we had our own common interests to bond over.

Looking at my daughter's social circle it starts as early as in preschool.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#304

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

drob518 wrote: post #286

helterskelter wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read an Economist article a few years ago that mentioned a literature professor at Columbia who said that most his undergrad freshmen students have never read a book cover to cover. Of those that have, their favorites were young adult fiction. Most of his students couldn't even focus on a single sonnet. Apparently kids nowadays are having difficulty focusing on individual sentences, and a lot of them are just effec…

Yep, it’s a crisis. We’re raising kids that are illiterate and frankly just dumb. You ever watch those YouTube videos where they interview college kids (who were actually accepted to a college!) and they can’t correctly answer who fought in the US Civil War and other basic knowledge questions? They don’t know the difference between continents and countries (e.g. Europe and a country within Europe). They can’t tell yo…

[dead]

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#305

Post by S_Bear » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

kuerbel wrote: post #256

zhivota wrote: post #115

We recently had some behavior issues with our kids - they didn't want to do activities outside the house, they hated reading, they hated anything that required even the slightest discomfort or effort. We decided to cut device usage way down - they get 1 hour in the morning to play whatever games they want on computer, tablet, console. Then they get 1 hour before bed to watch TV. The rest of the day, no devices. We ar…

It depends on what they are doing on the device, 100%. When I was a kid I got a GameBoy, one of those old red ones, played tetris or Mario Land for an hour and after that it was boring and I did something else. Got an N64 which was already way more engaging, but even then after an hour or two I was done. It just got worse the more sophisticated games became. And now we have infinite videos and content, infinite scrol…

I've been replaying some of the games of my youth, and they are either super easy or don't take very much time (I remember the original Final Fantasy being this vast epic tale; it took me 9-ish hours to beat as an adult. My Punch-Out reflexes didn't die, and I made it to re-skinned Mike Tyson on my first go.) A third of a game of Civ V takes longer than any of the NES and Genesis games I played as a kid.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#306

Post by mold_aid » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #278

mold_aid wrote: post #262

I'm definitely on the "it's the devices" train, but reading instruction in school in the US after high school really breaks students into an absolute exhaustion with the practice. Not to mention they're still reading the stuff I read in the '80s. Certainly some exceptions but I do not think secondary instruction has the right take on this.

Education today is broken in general. Few people have a clue about what education is actually for . How can you possibly educate students well if you don't know the destination? And how can you know the destination if you don't know what it means to be human? To be human entails a destination that is definitive for the species. Overwhelmingly, education today is a shaped by the logic of consumerism. Consumerism begin…

yeah I'm seconding all of that, esp. the critique of edtech

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#307

Post by mold_aid » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

windows_hater_7 wrote: post #4

fatnoah wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly (probably?) a coincidence, but it did look like broad changes to how reading was taught started to land in 2010-2012: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/common-standards-dr... The real culprit is probably more in line with far more alternatives to reading for entertainment.

Not a rigorous response, but Minecraft.

not to mention the vaguely desperate "Minecraft in Education." Pity the short-lived "Dwarf Fortress: Education Edition" never caught on

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#308

Post by watwut » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

ndriscoll wrote: post #298

watwut wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young adult literature is not "books for target range of 11-15". OP made that claim up to make it sound terrible that people who finished high school report liking to read books literally written for their age bracket. Official young adult age range is 13-18, which means literally high schoolers. And yes, they are already grown a lot, so those books frequently end up being popular among reading adults too. I am from…

I remember plenty of "young adult" books in the school library in elementary and middle school in the 90s. e.g. I read A Wrinkle in Time in 4th grade, and The Giver was assigned in 7th. I think Hatchet may have been a choice of assigned reading in 5th. IIRC (and a quick search confirms) all of these were marketed as young adult. I've always thought of YA as targeted at roughly 9-12 years old. I remember thinking the…

You seem to assume that reading fiction is some kind of competition. You read it as 9 years old, therefore it is shameful to read it as teenager or adult. That is genuinely absurd.

I never said a kid should not be allowed to read books outside of their demographic bracket. Kids can read books "officially" for younger kids, older kids or adults assuming it does not contain genuinely 18+ content. A kid reading book meant for young adults will typically miss some themes, topics or relationships. It will relate characters differently, will miss some motivation and some stuff flies over their head. I personally missed most of the sex in Witcher when I read it the first time when I was too young to figure them out. I thought some characters are just mean when adult me understood exactly why they do what they do.

Young adult category is not meant or written for 9-12 years crowd. That does not mean kids brain will melt. My own kids have seen and enjoyed entertainment meant for older people - but it was super apparent a lot of it went right over their heads when I talked with them.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#309

Post by pipes » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

kuerbel wrote: post #256

zhivota wrote: post #115

We recently had some behavior issues with our kids - they didn't want to do activities outside the house, they hated reading, they hated anything that required even the slightest discomfort or effort. We decided to cut device usage way down - they get 1 hour in the morning to play whatever games they want on computer, tablet, console. Then they get 1 hour before bed to watch TV. The rest of the day, no devices. We ar…

It depends on what they are doing on the device, 100%. When I was a kid I got a GameBoy, one of those old red ones, played tetris or Mario Land for an hour and after that it was boring and I did something else. Got an N64 which was already way more engaging, but even then after an hour or two I was done. It just got worse the more sophisticated games became. And now we have infinite videos and content, infinite scrol…

Yep both the snes and N64 definitely negatively affected my attainment in school. It's an uncomfortable truth that in hindsight games did negatively affect me.

Now I waste time reading about how those old games were made!

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#310

Post by lukewrites » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

talon8635 wrote: post #149

lukewrites wrote: post #77

This is a result of living in homes where parents neither read to children nor model reading for pleasure. Thanks to the various waves of “education reform”, there is less literature on offer and less time for pleasure reading. However, if you’re reading them exciting things at home (and telling them about the exciting stuff you’re reading), they will love to read.

Less literature on offer? It seems to me the easiest time in human history to access any information whatsoever, including any and all literature. The quality of modern literature may well be declining, but the is literally endless reading material everywhere

Sorry, I edited out some context there. What I meant is that _at school_ there's less literature on offer; instead, kids are burdened with reading "instructional texts" that are as terrible and lifeless as the name sounds.

I think parents have to counteract the negative effects of this by exposing their kids to the joys of words and reading. I agree with you 100% that there's an amazing diversity of texts out there now! Every so often when I grab an ereader I think about how blown away I would have been as a kid to think that I could take HUNDREDS of books with me on vacation.