Children’s reading enjoyment has fallen to its lowest level in almost two decades, with just one in three young people saying that they enjoy reading in their free time, according to a new survey.
Only 34.6% of eight- to 18-year-olds surveyed by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) said that they enjoy reading in their spare time. This is the lowest level recorded by the charity since it began surveying children about their reading habits 19 years ago, representing an 8.8 percentage point drop since last year.
It is also part of a broader downward trend since 2016, when almost two in three children said that they enjoyed reading.
Given that there are plenty of pro-consumerism schlocky books (if not the majority, being that most are just entertainment-targeted consumer goods), and plenty of highly educational non-book texts, this doesn’t really mean anything.