The global reading crisis that started with smartphones

There’s a simple statistic that often stops people in their tracks.

It is this: Reading for pleasure as a child is the factor that studies show is more closely correlated with future success than anything else — even more than family background, wealth, schooling or peer group.

But in America right now fewer children than ever are reading for pleasure: The percentage fell from 53% in 2012 to 39% in 2022, according to a study by the National Endowment for the Arts.

This mirrors data from the National Center for Education Statistics and from around the world.

Levels of reading for pleasure among children were solid in every report until 2011, when they started to see a precipitous decline.

It’s probably not a coincidence that 2011-12 was the time that smartphone adoption became prevalent in the U.S., with almost half of the adult population owning a smartphone by the end of 2012, and two-thirds owning one by 2015.

The statistics for the decline in reading for pleasure are inversely proportional to those that track the number of hours of smartphone usage.

These now amount to roughly