Literature

5418 readers

1 users here now

Pretty straightforward: books and literature of all stripes can be discussed here.

If you're interested in posting your own writing, formal or informal, check out the Writing community!

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

remington

alyaza

Kamirose

Report finds ‘shocking and dispiriting’ fall in children reading for pleasure (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by alyaza to c/literature

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Children's reading enjoyment has fallen to its lowest level in almost two decades, with just one in three young people saying that they enjoy reading in their free time, according to a new survey.

Only 34.6% of eight- to 18-year-olds surveyed by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) said that they enjoy reading in their spare time. This is the lowest level recorded by the charity since it began surveying children about their reading habits 19 years ago, representing an 8.8 percentage point drop since last year.

It is also part of a broader downward trend since 2016, when almost two in three children said that they enjoyed reading.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] t3rmit3 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (10 children)

I'm always interested to see exactly what is included and excluded from their definition of reading. On average, most adults actually read more today that we did in the 90s, if you're purely talking words of text consumed. Are graphic novels being included in these stats? Short stories? Social media threads? Most people even watch videos/tv/movies with subtitles they read now, which was not something that was an option before.

The actual article text never says the word "book" once, but I strongly suspect that is all that's being counted.

[–] iagomago@feddit.it 8 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

As a teacher in lower secondary school, kids don't do any of that. They read physical media sporadically, and the main kind of digital media they consume is through IG and TikTok, furtherly filtered by the algorithm to appeal to their interest. The only kind of excitement I see in their eyes when talking reading is when talking manga, but even then it's mostly because they got there through anime (dubbed, so not even with subs) first. Kids don't read half as often as we did twenty years ago, and teachers get the blame for trying to push some sense in them through lecture.

[–] Vodulas 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The only kind of excitement I see in their eyes when talking reading is when talking manga

I don't think you meant that manga is bad, but there is a huge variety of manga, and a lot of it is really good. But even if they just read shonen, is that a problem? They are reading for fun. It should be celebrated

[–] iagomago@feddit.it 4 points 2 weeks ago

Of course I don't think manga is bad, literature Is literature after all. As I said, it's just that the interest in the material Is filtered through an appreciation of formerly consumed visual media, and even then It remains "an interest", rather than something they actively look for. Monetary factors have also to be looked in: not every country can afford to print out Shonen Jump.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (7 replies)