Can we all believe that reading rates in the U.S. have been declining steadily, showing a trend in graphs? It’s crazy how people quit reading books!
The Rise of Social Media Over Reading As social media started to arise, people have slowly been putting away books aside for phones, reels, shorts and shorts to name a few. Social media has had such a bad effect on people that they forgot what a pronoun even is, using slang and abbreviations; it’s slowly also lowering attention spans of younger users.
The Decline According to the NCES According to a study of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the fun of reading for leisure for 13-year-olds went from 27% in 2012 to 14% in 2023! With a staggering 13% decline, while it may seem less, it is the lowest in NCES history, which should be concerning enough.
Photo obtained from beyondbasics.org.
Long Term-Trends Let’s talk about long-term trends and adult reading! The Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) in 2022 conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that 48.5% of adults reported having read at least one book in the past year, whilst compared to 52.7% five years earlier and 54.6% 10 years earlier. Overall ages have shown a 20% decline in reading over the past two decades, which is also concerning.
Postive Effects On Your Body by Reading Reading has positive effects on you and your body plus, your soul. A study by the University of California, Santa Barbara found that reading regularly can prevent diseases like Alzheimer’s and Dementia since it keeps your brain active and reduces stress. It also gives you knowledge, improves vocabulary and memory, and produces stronger cognitive and analytical abilities. Social media does not do this.
Only we can save ourselves now from this monster of decline in cognitive abilities. We should thrive to read books and read more, not only for standardized tests! But for us to save ourselves from digging deep in social media.
Although social media is not that bad, it should be limited. Give more time to reading, not an all-timer stress machine of social media.
Social media algorithms don’t know you! It can recommend anything brainrotted or something inappropriate to watch. However with books, you can explore the whole world at your fingertips and at your own pace. All that is your choice, not recommended to you by some AI bot.
Will you ever quit reading?
