The fact that no one really sits down to read anymore (or, at least, that’s the way it might seem) is a symptom of many concurrent cultural and societal influences. However, this lack of reading acumen is more than just a change in preference; it’s having real impacts on entire generations, including those who grew up enjoying the earthy smell of a newly printed paperback.
Why Does No One Read Anymore?
While it may seem like no one reads nowadays, that’s not true. However, what is true is that people are reading less now than they used to. Data suggest that people who enjoy books are reading three fewer per year compared to 2016. The total amount of time spent reading has decreased, too, and that points to a very important trend that’s going largely unnoticed: it’s not about books but rather the written word itself.
There are three primary drivers behind the recent decrease in reading: culture, societal influence, and biology.
Societal Pressure, Culture, and Reading
It’s likely easy to see how societal identity in many locations conflicts with reading. Reading for pleasure has decreased over time as time commitments in other areas increase. According to the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), leisure time has decreased significantly in many places since the 2010s, with locations such as Spain seeing a 10% or more reduction in free time.
People are now spending more than three additional hours each day on their phones compared to 2010, and when ranked against leisure activities (including basic tasks such as “thinking”), reading scored the lowest among all time commitments. The combination of increasing technology access and decreasing free time leads to fewer opportunities (or reasons!) than ever to read.
Many scenarios that would have forced even non-hobbyists to read in the past are dwindling. Audiobooks remove the need to consume physical media, and AI technology such as Google Home and Alexa can answer questions whose answers might otherwise have required multiple web pages.
Today’s fast-paced society also favors speed, with many engagements presuming quick response time. There is less socially acceptable time allotted for reading; why spend time poring over pages of text when simple functions such as Ctrl+F or LLMs can bring you directly to the information you need?
The Biology of Attention
The other primary factor influencing the decline in reading is changing attention spans. Technology has changed the physiological function of the brain, and this, combined with the aforementioned societal and cultural shifts has created the perfect storm to disincentivize reading.
Attention is governed by the prefrontal cortex, which directs other regions of the brain to attend to specific attributes of the current situation. The thalamus, for example, regulates the body’s arousal: its use of energy directed toward perception. When a person perceives and then “figures out” the thing that was drawing attention, they receive a reward called dopamine.
Dopamine is the body’s built-in incentive system. It encourages people to act in certain ways that are advantageous by providing a reward. Technology plays directly into the human dopamine system, short-circuiting what used to make reading its own reward.
Why We’re Less Attentive Than Before
Books used to be appealing because they were a source of dopamine. Finishing a chapter, uncovering the next part of a story’s narrative, or sharing discussions with friends were all powerful sources of dopamine. However, modern humanity’s dopamine system has begun to function differently.
Physiological change
Dopamine is abundant thanks to technology. In fact, tech has been curated specifically to prey on people’s reward channels and alter them over time. For example, Instagram’s algorithm feeds users things they want to see. However, the space between these desired items gradually increases the longer someone scrolls, spaced just so that the person continues to engage. Reward them sooner, and they will not keep scrolling as much. Wait too long, and they will leave. The algorithm is very carefully curated to train the same part of the brain as gambling.
Studies show that when people engage in these behaviors, the dopamine pathways in the brain change over time. This physical alteration creates the compulsion for increasingly frequent hits of dopamine, decreasing a person’s tolerance for long-form behaviors with a dopamine reward at the end. Reading becomes too much effort.
Systemic change
From an early age, children are more exposed to technology than ever before. As they become adults, their baseline threshold for a dopamine reward is higher because they are constantly exposed to quick sources of dopamine. Why spend much more time for the same dopamine reward (reading) when you can achieve it in minutes?
They, too, undergo physiological alterations to their dopamine systems, but often to even greater effect than adults. It is becoming normalized for children to spend multiple hours per day in front of the TV or on tablets, and this is rewiring their brains. However, adults are not immune, either! Exposure to social media is now embedded into culture itself; job applications often need to be done directly on LinkedIn, some companies are most responsive on Facebook Messenger, and some disciplines (like art) essentially demand a presence on Instagram. Even if people actively want to avoid technology, it is becoming increasingly impossible.
Division of attention
Another, albeit less obvious, reason that people struggle to read is that they struggle to focus. They are receiving dopamine from multiple sources (phones, TVs, other family members, music, and so on), which means that the thalamus’ ability to attend to and prioritize any one source is muted.
Books demand more attention than other forms of media for what is often a less substantial dopamine reward than faster sources, so it is no wonder that reading is suffering. People are less willing to spend more of their divided attention on something that takes longer to achieve a dopamine reward that is often less than what they can earn in just a few minutes. Maintaining a strong attention span and regulating your brain’s dopamine centers takes conscious effort. Sit and read that book, even if you’d rather be doing other things. It might take some time, but you can retrain your brain to look forward to dopamine from a slow-burn novel just as much as from a funny cat meme (and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive!).
