A 2002 survey “Reading at Risk” conducted by the Census Bureau at the request of the National Endowment for the Arts has already revealed a significant decline in reading among American young people and adults.

The report can be summarized in a single sentence: literary reading in America is not only declining among all groups, but the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among young, according to Dana Gioia, Chairman at National Endowment for the Arts. Throughout the survey, the number of American young adults, who used to read literary or any other kind of book, significantly declined. Namely, less than half of the adult American population now reads literature. In the same way, the percentage of the US adult population reading any books has dropped by seven percent over the past decade. This survey’s results dated back two decades ago, but the rate of reading among American young and adult people keeps fluctuating over time. In 2019, it has even been reported that 72 percent of US adult respondents declared having read a book within the past year, regardless of the format of the book. 65 percent reported that they prefer reading paper version of books. A study by Pew Research Center showed that printed books have continued to be more popular compared to other book formats such as ebooks and audiobooks.

It has been found that the remaining percentage of those who declare to have not read nor finished a book was composed of people with limited incomes or with lower education levels (high school degree and less). According to a Pew Research study, roughly a quarter of American adults do not read books at all. It argues that “non-book reading” among Americans correlated with several demographic characteristics that range from wealth to education level. The study also revealed that “non-book readers” are mostly common among those who do not have access to a library or only those who have never been to. A 2016 survey of Pew found that Hispanic older adults, those living in households earning less than 30,000 dollars and those who have a high school diploma or did not graduate from high school are most likely to report they have never been to a public library. Furthermore, as reading has also been introduced to the digitalization era thanks to the modern technology, some people with lower incomes are less likely to own electronic devices such as smartphones to read digital books. In fact, not affording the access to digital devices still lies as the main reason for the reading gap, which appears to become common within many American households.

Sources: National Endowment for the Arts (extract from the 2020 survey “Reading at Risk”). For full text go to http://www.arts.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf / Pew Research