The Reading Epidemic

Miss Auras, The Red Book 
by Sir John Lavery

When was the last time you opened a book? I don't mean a SparkNotes article or a ChatGPT Summary, and I don't mean an e-book or audiobook. I don't mean that book that lives on your nightstand that you've never actually opened. When was the last time you went to your local library or your dusty bookshelf, opened a book, and actually read more than one chapter of it? 

A few of you have 100 books marked as read on GoodReads this year. Others have one book they read a few chapters of for school. I personally have a shameful number of stories under my belt, but it took me two months to read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and I have been neglecting actually opening To Kill a Mockingbird. My screen time, on the other hand, averages anywhere from 3-6 hours a day, not even counting all the time I spend working on my laptop. 

We Don't Know How to Read

Here's the thing. People don't read books anymore. Dozens of studies show that literacy rates in the U.S. are declining, to the point that around 20% of American adults are functionally illiterate. Gen Alpha isn't any better, with studies citing only around 30% of them at an average reading level for their age. Even Ivy League students have reported an inability to keep up with the assigned reading from their professors and process full-length texts. 

Part of the problem comes from the education system. The very foundations of our ability to read have been damaged with the shift from phonics to sight-reading that accompanied the No Child Left Behind Act. At the middle and high school level, public school students are being prepared for standardized testing rather than actual life skills and events. Instead of full-length texts, they are asked to read excerpts and analyze said excerpts not for the author's meaning and ideas to inform their own thinking, but for the shallow understanding required to pass multiple-choice tests. These students never learn to read and process a full novel for themes and dynamics in context, and never learn to think critically about art and other people's ideas. One such student is Aleysha Ortiz, who claims she is fundamentally illiterate because her school passed her through her classes without helping her learn, and is suing because of it. 

Reading is not Efficient

But it's not just that we can't read. It's that we have no desire to. Why would we? Reading is not only difficult for us, but it is also lengthy, time-consuming, and sometimes boring. The last book I read took me two months to finish (though mostly due to my own procrastination). Why would I spend that time when I could watch 40 Instagram reels in 2 minutes, or put a YouTube video on 2x speed? To read requires a massive spending of resources. We have to give up not only our time, but our thoughts, our attention, and our money. Reading, or consuming any art for that matter, is not efficient, and we live in a culture that values efficiency.  

A McDonald's cheeseburger is efficient. You can be in and out of the drive-through in under ten minutes, and I could probably eat half my fries in just one bite. The only reason we don't choose to eat a McDonald's cheeseburger for every meal is that while it's efficient, it's not actually good for us. Instead, we (ideally) take the time to have a yogurt or a handmade sandwich, because we value the benefits of taking that extra time. Believe it or not, it's the same thing with reading.

The Difficulty of Reading is Worth It

Reading is difficult and inefficient, but I would argue that its benefits outweigh its drawbacks. Those benefits are probably the reason why books have been around so long. As long as there have been people, there have been stories, and as long as there has been written language, we've been writing those stories down. Writing and reading are the most honest ways that we can express ourselves and consume the thoughts of others, respectively. It connects us to a shared human experience and allows us to become privy to the internal thoughts and desires of others. 

"For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul. . . whose progeny they are." -- John Milton's Areopagitica

I am only just finding out that I have been misattributing this quote to William Wordsworth for years, but someone else, whose name I cannot find out, said that the purpose of literature is "to teach and entertain." I would argue that this is true. Literature allows us to learn through and about the author, but good books also make you want to read them by being entertaining. 

When it comes to teaching, we can gain obvious knowledge from non-fiction works, but we can also use works of fiction or poetry to gain more subtle emotional and social knowledge and better understand the world around us and the people who inhabit it. 

Reading books and therefore increasing our familiarity with literature, writing, and how to think critically about it, increases our general media literacy. When you have a familiarity with good and bad writing, and an ability to understand and think critically, you can understand when something is obviously false information or when an argument is formulated poorly. Increased reading abilities allow you to pay attention to the world and the media around you, and to connect ideas and common themes across media types and authors. 

Likewise, reading books allows us to enhance our ability to provide empathy and understanding for other people. Every author has their own unique background and worldview, and will thus create a work like no other, and the art of writing is one that encourages intimacy, honesty, and vulnerability, allowing authors to express themselves openly. When you take advantage of this and access the innermost thoughts and experiences of other people, it allows you to understand what they believe and why, and to decide which of their arguments you support and why. You can apply that understanding and empathy to real-life situations and relationships. Seeking out literature can expand your thinking, rather than putting you in the echo chamber that doom-scrolling does. For example, I personally have an opposition to the idea of homosexuality, but my favorite poet ever, Richard Siken, happens to be a gay man. I read his poetry because it is objectively well-written, and I enjoy the emotion behind it, and consuming his art allows me to better understand how he feels and why, as well as the perspective with which he sees the world. 

It is by this gain of knowledge and understanding that reading enhances our critical thinking skills. I have no eloquent way to phrase this: If you do not use your critical thinking skills, they will die. Guidance counselors have been saying it since elementary school, but your brain truly is a muscle. If you do not make a habit of thinking critically, it will grow more and more difficult. Reading is one of the best ways to enhance those skills. Doom-scrolling, watching Netflix, and listening to music are all noble pursuits of which I have partaken, but, generally speaking, they do not make you think. Reading, generally speaking, gives you no choice but to think. It's like how the New York Times Connections gets easier to solve when you are familiar with it and understand how the editors formulate it. If you are practiced in reading, you will have an easier time dissecting emails, understanding emotions, and expressing your own ideas in a nuanced way. 

So what's stopping you? If you've made it this far, you're clearly literate. In fact, you've already started on the journey to reading more, since you just read a whole blog post. Congratulations! Now that you've started, why stop? You have access to books. You can find them at your local library, or probably at your parents' house. If you're intimidated by the length of a book, go read a short story. I recommend The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury. You could even read another blog post if you wanted to! You have the ability. You desire the benefits. So do it! Go out and open a book, even if you only read one page at a time. Find a topic you enjoy, turn off your phone, and start reading. I wish you nothing but the best of luck.