I have been shocked by the monstrous neglect that is heaped on many children. A significant number of parents keep kids like worthless livestock. They do the bare minimum to not lose them to CPS and then kick them out at the first opportunity.
Spending as much time as it takes to read to your children every night is WAY more than these parents are willing to do. Children are lucky if they can eat more than one meal a day, sleep in a clean bed and have clean clothes to wear. Usually there are abused and neglected animals that will foul the household and bite the children. Money is spent on nicotine products, alcohol, fast food, and gambling. Any money spent on children is done so hesitantly.
This is why social services like daycare and public schools are so important. It is often the only chance many children will have to get the care and attention they need to survive until adulthood without huge mental and physical health issues.
I don't recall my parents reading with (or to) me, ever. maybe when i was two and I don't remember it? I never saw either one read for pleasure. I did know my dad would read fiction when waiting in airports when traveling, because he'd giv me the paperbacks when he'd get home. (I remember a Bantam Doc Savage reprint, Ludlum, Forsyth, and more). That said, I've always read for pleasure and do it daily.
My dad read to me and my brother every night. When I became a teenager I read his (fairly complete) sci-fi collection for fun and we spent a ton of time discussing it together. It's surprising how similar our tastes are, I don't know if that's genetic or epigenetic but I suspect it doesn't matter and many people could have a similar experience.
I've been maintaining my own collection in the hope that I could give my own children (if I have any, which is looking increasingly less likely) the same experience.
I admittedly read less for myself nowadays, as I can only pick up an hour here or there, but I've read at least 10-20 pages per day for/with the kids for the last 8 years. The bonus with the 8 yo is that I've read books that didn't exist when I was young and thus never got around to, so I've read Percy Jackson, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter (not as good as the expectation), on top of reading the Hobbit for the 3rd time (her request) and a few repeated Narnia books (some of the latter written ones are quite a slog frankly). I'm hoping to keep this up for as long as they are receptive.
But solo reading I think I've only gotten through Exhalation, Silmarillion and Rendezvous with Rama in the last year.
From the full paper: "Although reading with children did not change over time, rates of engagement were surprisingly low, with only 2% of participants reading with children on the average day. Overall, 21% of our sample had a child under 9 years (the age by which most can read independently) with them during the diary day. So a large majority of those with young children did not read with them."
So of people with young children, it looks like the rate is about 9.5%.
I find that when I start reading a book that I enjoy, it is easily the most gripping form of entertainment, and I can barely put the book down. But, it also takes more effort to get started, so I rarely get into that zone and end up scrolling my phone instead.
I think for me the friction comes from the commitment required to finish the book. If I pick up a book and I’ve not been reading lately, it means I need to commit to picking up that book for weeks.
I know you don’t necessarily need to finish every book, but if I don’t finish then I won’t be able to pick it up again later without forgetting the progress or re-reading the same sections again. Neither are desirable.
This is generally true of anything worthwhile - it always takes some activation energy. Watching a good film vs mindless one, tiktok vs a book, gardening vs tv. Investment of time into things worthwhile vs that immediate dopamine hit is a constant battle.
It makes sense. Flashing colors and noise and people making dramatic expressions is deeply satisfying to the monkey brain versus boring text and abstracted thinking.
Further, reading on tablets, computers, or smartphones was not explicitly included in examples, making it unclear whether this behavior would have been classified as reading for personal interest or technology use.
I would like to cast doubt on the findings if they don't include phones.
I know a couple folks that do a ton of phone only reading now. I haven't read for pleasure in over a decade but I've listened to ~1300 different audiobooks. Seems like this isn't well thought out.
Listening to audiobooks is included in the survey (but they also mention that most people who listen to audiobooks also read print books; you are likely an outlier in that regard).
Yeah that’s dumb. I read a decent amount, but it’s all Kindle or Readwise. Why should I carry a book or e-reader around when I’m already carrying a phone or other similar device?
I think that at least to some extent, the stranger-than-fiction reality we're living through is a strong substitute for the novelty we used to seek in books.
I’ve found my own reading for pleasure has dropped a lot the past year as well and it’s almost entirely due to AI.
Most(easily 90%) of my reading came in the form of serialized novels that are published chapter by chapter in various forums. They’ve all been swamped with AI content that’s good enough to not be immediately obvious but then becomes a waste of time after a few paragraphs.
And it’s just a firehose of this kind of content. I can’t tell if the actual human made content is down because people are tired of the competition or if there really is that much bot activity that the human activity is being watered down to single digit percentages
It's genuinely sad how the golden-age of web-serials seems to now be behind us. One of my favorite things is how the format allows the community to stay engaged with the story in a way that doesn't really happen when an author releases a completed novel
Maybe it's because of applying too narrow a definition of what contents should count as "for pleasure reading": books, magazines... but what about blog posts, social media? Certainly, that's something people read for personal pleasure?!
Readit News
This part really got to me, reading to one's children is rare? That's so sad. My toddler loves reading with me.
Dead Comment
Spending as much time as it takes to read to your children every night is WAY more than these parents are willing to do. Children are lucky if they can eat more than one meal a day, sleep in a clean bed and have clean clothes to wear. Usually there are abused and neglected animals that will foul the household and bite the children. Money is spent on nicotine products, alcohol, fast food, and gambling. Any money spent on children is done so hesitantly.
This is why social services like daycare and public schools are so important. It is often the only chance many children will have to get the care and attention they need to survive until adulthood without huge mental and physical health issues.
I've been maintaining my own collection in the hope that I could give my own children (if I have any, which is looking increasingly less likely) the same experience.
But solo reading I think I've only gotten through Exhalation, Silmarillion and Rendezvous with Rama in the last year.
When reading progression is ready for more depth, The Dark Is Rising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Is_Rising_Sequence or Earthsea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthsea are both excellent too.
All are series with approachable first books that can be enjoyed on their own (if they don't hit).
We started with Detective Dinosaur and ended with either One Hundred Years of Solitude or Ender's Game. Don't remember which.
So of people with young children, it looks like the rate is about 9.5%.
I know you don’t necessarily need to finish every book, but if I don’t finish then I won’t be able to pick it up again later without forgetting the progress or re-reading the same sections again. Neither are desirable.
Most(easily 90%) of my reading came in the form of serialized novels that are published chapter by chapter in various forums. They’ve all been swamped with AI content that’s good enough to not be immediately obvious but then becomes a waste of time after a few paragraphs.
And it’s just a firehose of this kind of content. I can’t tell if the actual human made content is down because people are tired of the competition or if there really is that much bot activity that the human activity is being watered down to single digit percentages