Reading in decline

Derek Thompson’s podcast episode, The End of Reading, featured conversations with a journalist and an academic about our relationship with reading.

🎧 Also on Apple Podcasts | The Ringer

Interviewee #1: Rose Horowitch

Wrote a piece for The Atlantic about the alarming decline of reading among elite college students.

Reading books, even for pleasure, can’t compete with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. In 1976, about 40 percent of high-school seniors said they had read at least six books for fun in the previous year, compared with 11.5 percent who hadn’t read any. By 2022, those percentages had flipped.

Interviewee #2: Nat Malkus

Penned a report interpreting American student achievement tests, documenting a downtrend that started around 2013. He notes that "gallons of ink are spilled" on the many proposed culprits. The internet. Violent video games. Parents, teachers, policymakers. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. Lack of ambition, perfectionism, laziness. It’s a long list.