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Federal Data On Reading For Pleasure All Signs Show A Slump

Leo Migdal
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federal data on reading for pleasure all signs show a slump

A poet-friend of mine runs a blog that carries, as its tagline, “Would it kill you to read a #$%&% book?” To my ears, the slogan has come to sound less like a writer’s... Most recently, survey results from three different sources—the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Department of Education, and, yes, the Arts Endowment—have shown a gradual and worrisome trend of fewer Americans reading for pleasure. Last fall, the NEA reported how, according to its 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, 48.5 percent of adults reported having read at least one book in the past year, compared with 52.7 percent five years earlier, and 54.6 percent ten years earlier.

Meanwhile, in 2022, just 37.6 percent reported reading a novel or short story, compared with 41.8 percent in 2017 and 45.2 percent in 2012. As we said at the time, the fiction-reading rate was the lowest in the history of the SPPA, a survey that goes back more than three decades. Now we have indicators from other places. First, in the same year that the NEA survey findings came out, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported long-term declines in the share of 13-year-olds who reported reading for fun “almost every day.” In 2023, the figure was 14 percent, down from... The share of 13-year-olds who fell into this reading category in 2023 was lower than in any previous test year, according to NCES’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), billed as “The Nation’s Report...

Only in recent years, moreover, has the slump registered among nine-year-olds, another student population tracked by NAEP’s long-term assessments. For decades, more than half of all nine-year-olds reported reading for fun “almost every day.” In 2012, that figure was 53 percent. In 2020, it dropped to 42 percent, and in 2022 (the most recent year for which data are available), 39 percent. Also in 2022, the share of nine-year-olds who “never or hardly ever” read for fun was at its highest: 16 percent. The ability to read well and the inclination to read for pleasure are intimately connected. Advocates for the literary arts, therefore, should be concerned with both dimensions of the student experience.

From 2012 to 2023, the same period that saw the share of 13-year-old “almost-every-day” readers fall by 13 percentage points, average reading scores slipped from 263 in 2012 to 260 in 2020 and 256... Reading for pleasure is in "freefall" - dropping over 40% in the last 20 years, warns new research. The "deeply concerning" findings raise urgent questions about the cultural, educational and health consequences of reading less, say scientists. The study, published in the journal iScience, found that daily reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last two decades. Researchers from University College London (UCL) and the University of Florida analyzed data from more than 236,000 Americans. They say the findings suggest a "fundamental cultural shift" with fewer people carving out time in their day to read for enjoyment.

A recent study published in the journal IScience found that the number of adults who read for pleasure in the United States has continued to fall. While 26 percent of adults read for pleasure in 2003, 2023 data suggests that only 16 percent of adults regularly read for pleasure. The study allowed the definition of “reading” to include books, newspapers, magazines, e-readers, and audiobooks. There are strong disparities of reading time along gender, racial, and educational lines. In 2023, more women (18.6 percent) regularly read for pleasure than men (13.7 percent). Black participants had a 49% lower prevalence of daily reading than White participants.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, those who completed postgraduate education had a 2.79 times higher prevalence of daily reading compared to those with high school or less education. Additionally, the study found that only 2 percent of adults regularly read with children. The authors noted that since 21 percent of study participants had a child under 9 years old, the data shows that a large majority of parents do not read with their children. The fact that fewer adults are reading to children isn’t a problem confined to Minnesota. A HarperCollins UK survey found that fewer than half (41 percent) of children ages 0-4 are read to frequently. In the same survey, only 40 percent of parents said that reading to their children “is fun for me.”

Recent research has revealed a troubling decline in both required reading assignments and reading for pleasure among students across the United States. This shift has significant implications for educational outcomes and lifelong learning habits. According to Harvard research published in February 2025, social media and digital alternatives are partially responsible for falling reading scores nationwide. The study points out that while the pandemic exacerbated these issues, the decline predates COVID-19 disruptions, suggesting deeper structural challenges in our educational approach. The National Endowment for the Arts has documented this downward trend with alarming statistics showing a consistent slump in reading for pleasure across all demographics. This decline parallels observations from the Chronicle of Higher Education, which reports that today's students struggle with extended reading assignments because they simply aren't accustomed to sustained reading practices.

This capability gap isn't appearing suddenly in college—it's being created much earlier. Educational curricula in U.S. middle and high schools have shifted dramatically away from assigning full-length books. Many English classrooms now focus primarily on selected passages or excerpts rather than complete novels, a practice that fails to develop students' reading stamina and comprehensive understanding. Several factors appear to be driving this trend: A sweeping new study from the University of Florida and University College London has found that daily reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last 20...

Published today in the journal iScience, the study analyzed data from over 236,000 Americans who participated in the American Time Use Survey between 2003 and 2023. The findings suggest a fundamental cultural shift: fewer people are carving out time in their day to read for enjoyment. “This is not just a small dip — it’s a sustained, steady decline of about 3% per year,” said Jill Sonke, Ph.D., director of research initiatives at the UF Center for Arts in Medicine... “It’s significant, and it’s deeply concerning.” Who’s reading and who isn’t The decline wasn’t evenly spread across the population. Researchers found steeper drops among Black Americans than white Americans, people with lower income or educational attainment, and those in rural (versus metropolitan) areas — highlighting deepening disparities in reading access and habits.

“While people with higher education levels and women are still more likely to read, even among these groups, we’re seeing shifts,” said Jessica Bone, Ph.D., senior research fellow in statistics and epidemiology at University... “And among those who do read, the time spent reading has increased slightly, which may suggest a polarization, where some people are reading more while many have stopped reading altogether.” The proportion of people reading for pleasure daily in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last 20 years, new research from the EpiArts Lab shows. New research from the EpiArts Lab, our collaboration with the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, has just been published in the journal iScience. Our study analysed data from over 236,000 Americans who participated in the American Time Use Survey between 2003 and 2023. The findings suggest a fundamental cultural shift: fewer people are carving out time in their day to read for enjoyment.

The proportion who read for pleasure on an average day declined from nearly a third (28%) in 2004 to about one in six (16%) in 2023, the study found. Co-author Dr Jill Sonke (University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine), co-director of the EpiArts Lab, which is based at the University of Florida and run in partnership with UCL, said: “This is... It’s significant, and it’s deeply concerning.” October 3, 2024 by Sunil Iyengar 2 Comments A poet-friend of mine runs a blog that carries, as its tagline, “Would it kill you to read a #$%&% book?” To my ears, the slogan has come to sound less like a writer’s... Most recently, survey results from three different sources—the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Department of Education, and, yes, the Arts Endowment—have shown a gradual and worrisome trend of fewer Americans reading for pleasure. Last fall, the NEA reported how, according to its 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, 48.5 percent of adults reported having read at least one book in the past year, compared with 52.7 percent five years earlier, and 54.6 percent ten years earlier. Meanwhile, in 2022, just 37.6 percent reported reading a novel or short story, compared with 41.8 percent in 2017 and 45.2 percent in 2012. As we said at the time, the fiction-reading rate was the lowest in the history of the SPPA, a survey that goes back more than three decades.

Now we have indicators from other places. First, in the same year that the NEA survey findings came out, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported long-term declines in the share of 13-year-olds who reported reading for fun “almost every day.” In 2023, the figure was 14 percent, down from... The share of 13-year-olds who fell into this reading category in 2023 was lower than in any previous test year, according to NCES’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), billed as “The Nation’s Report... Only in recent years, moreover, has the slump registered among nine-year-olds, another student population tracked by NAEP’s long-term assessments. For decades, more than half of all nine-year-olds reported reading for fun “almost every day.” In 2012, that figure was 53 percent.

In 2020, it dropped to 42 percent, and in 2022 (the most recent year for which data are available), 39 percent. Also in 2022, the share of nine-year-olds who “never or hardly ever” read for fun was at its highest: 16 percent.

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From 2012 to 2023, the same period that saw the share of 13-year-old “almost-every-day” readers fall by 13 percentage points, average reading scores slipped from 263 in 2012 to 260 in 2020 and 256... Reading for pleasure is in "freefall" - dropping over 40% in the last 20 years, warns new research. The "deeply concerning" findings raise urgent questions about the cultural, educational and health c...

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A recent study published in the journal IScience found that the number of adults who read for pleasure in the United States has continued to fall. While 26 percent of adults read for pleasure in 2003, 2023 data suggests that only 16 percent of adults regularly read for pleasure. The study allowed the definition of “reading” to include books, newspapers, magazines, e-readers, and audiobooks. There ...