June 11, 2026
Booked and busy? Not anymore
Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows
Kids are ditching books, and the comments are blaming phones, schools, and 2012
TLDR: A new national report says far fewer kids, especially 13-year-olds, are reading for fun than they used to, and that matters because frequent readers tend to do better in school. In the comments, people are fiercely blaming phones and tablets, joking that comments might count as reading, and obsessing over why the drop seems to start in 2012.
America’s latest reading report landed like a parent-teacher conference from hell: kids are spending less of their free time reading for fun, and the biggest gasp came from one brutal stat — the share of 13-year-olds reading for pleasure has fallen by nearly half since 2012. The government’s education data also says kids who read more tend to score better on reading tests, which only fueled the panic. Enter the comments, where amateur detectives instantly fixated on one mystery: what on earth happened in 2012? One user practically demanded a plot twist, pointing out that both age groups seem to nosedive at the same moment.
Then came the blame game. The loudest hot take was simple and savage: phones and tablets stole books’ lunch money. Several commenters treated screens as the obvious villain, echoing wider parent fears about school devices and nonstop online life. But not everyone was clutching pearls. One especially relatable reply shrugged that after a day full of manuals, logs, and work reading, “reading for pleasure” sounds like a cosmic joke — a reminder that for some people, words already feel like homework.
And because the internet can never resist turning doom into comedy, one line stole the show: “Do internet comments count as reading?” Honestly? That may be the most 2025 question alive. Amid all the gloom, one sweet rebel simply asked for book recommendations and shouted out the Bobiverse series, proving the book nerds are still fighting the good fight.
Key Points
- •NCES survey data show the share of 13-year-olds who read for fun has declined by nearly half since 2012.
- •Among 9-year-olds, the share who read for fun has fallen 16 percentage points over the past 13 years.
- •The latest NCES report is based on data from more than 30,000 students and is part of a national math and reading assessment program dating back to the 1970s.
- •Students who read in their free time tend to score higher on standardized tests, with especially strong gains for teens who read every day.
- •The article links declining scores to increased youth screen time and notes that states have invested in early-childhood literacy programs amid concern about reading performance.