Overview of Why read anymore?
This Vergecast episode features Jake Kastrenakes talking with The Atlantic staff writer Rose Horowitch about her essay, “The End of Reading Is Here.” The conversation explores a real decline in sustained reading in the U.S., how technology and schooling have reshaped attention, and why the issue matters even in a world where people are still surrounded by text. The main argument is not that people can’t read anymore, but that many are losing the habit and capacity for deep, focused reading.
Key Findings on the Decline of Reading
The data suggests a real drop
Horowitch points to several alarming trends:
- Fewer than half of U.S. adults read a book of any kind in 2022
- Daily leisure reading fell to 16% in 2023
- The share of Americans reading a book or article on any given day has fallen about 40% over two decades
- Gambling has reportedly become a more common leisure activity than reading
The decline is broad, not limited to young people
The drop in reading is happening across demographics, including groups that historically read the most:
- Older adults / retirees
- Women
- College graduates
What “the end of reading” actually means
It is not literal illiteracy
Horowitch draws a key distinction:
- People still know how to read
- The issue is the loss of sustained, deep reading
- Americans may be reading more total words than ever through texts, emails, posts, and captions, but that’s not the same as reading a book or long-form article with attention
Reading has become fragmented
The concern is less “reading is gone” and more:
- Attention is being chopped into tiny pieces
- People are increasingly trained to switch away from anything that doesn’t grab them immediately
- Long, complex texts are becoming harder to sit with
Why Reading Is Declining
Technology is the biggest accelerant
Horowitch describes a multi-stage shift:
- Television began crowding out reading time
- Streaming, smartphones, broadband, TikTok, and endless scrolling supercharged the trend
- Devices are designed to keep users engaged with constant novelty and interruption
Attention habits are changing
Cognitive scientists she spoke with emphasized that brains haven’t fundamentally changed; habits have.
- People now expect content to be immediately engaging
- If something doesn’t hook them in the first seconds, they move on
- This creates a lower tolerance for difficult or slow material
Schools are part of the shift
Education reform has also changed reading expectations:
- Many middle and high school teachers now assign very few full books
- Instruction focuses more on excerpts, comprehension drills, and standardized test prep
- Students often arrive at college without much practice reading long works
Devices are entering classrooms early
Horowitch notes that:
- Tablets and Chromebooks are widespread in schools
- Many children receive digital devices very early, even before kindergarten
- This reinforces short-form consumption from the start
The College and AI Problem
Students are approaching reading differently
Professors report that some students now:
- Struggle with basic interpretive reading
- Need help identifying metaphor, irony, and structure
- See assigned reading as an obstacle rather than a tool for thinking
AI changes the stakes
Horowitch says AI is different from earlier technologies because it can write for you.
Why that matters:
- Writing helps people discover what they actually think
- If AI does too much of that work, people may skip the process of forming their own ideas
- AI also floods the world with more polished-looking text, making critical reading even more important
Why This Matters
Horowitch argues that the shift away from deep reading is not just a lifestyle change. It can affect:
- How people think
- How culture is shaped
- Politics and civic life
- What kinds of ideas and arguments people can sustain
Her core point: the medium of communication shapes consciousness, and moving from print toward more oral, video, and AI-mediated forms could change society in lasting ways.
Can Anything Be Done?
No one expects a full return to a reading-first culture
The people she spoke with generally do not think society is going back to a pre-digital world. Instead, the goal is to preserve the value of reading where it matters most.
Possible interventions
- Phone bans in schools
- More emphasis on reading full books in education
- Choosing to protect time for deep reading as a daily habit
She cites one example where a Texas school district saw 200,000 more library books checked out after a phone ban.
The bottom line
Reading survives only if people decide it matters enough to protect.
Notable Takeaways
- The issue is not that humans can no longer read, but that many are losing the ability or willingness to read deeply
- Schools and consumer tech are reinforcing the same pattern: short, fast, interruptible content
- AI may increase the amount of text in the world while weakening the skills needed to evaluate it
- The future may not be book-centered, but there are still meaningful ways to preserve reading habits
Other Verge Headlines Mentioned at the Top of the Episode
- Framework is reducing RAM in some laptop preorders due to supply shortages and cost spikes
- The European Commission fined Google $1 billion over alleged digital markets violations
- Lego is turning the original Donkey Kong arcade machine into a functional set
Personal Reading Notes Shared in the Episode
- Horowitch is currently reading Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
- Jake Kastrenakes is rereading East of Eden because of an upcoming Netflix adaptation