Is reading actually dying or just adapting with the generations?

(By Rachel Noorda and Kathi Inman Berens for The Conversation)

A trove of recent articles bemoan the collapse in recreational reading among younger Americans, with COVID-related reading declines, artificial intelligence and social media often described as causes.

But as the authors of “How Gen Z Discover and Consume Books,” we think many claims about Gen Z’s reading behaviors miss the mark.

Some long-standing, influential studies aren’t designed to capture how Gen Z often reads: multimodally – bouncing between print, e-book and audiobook for the same book – and on web platforms such as Wattpad, Webtoon, Kindle Unlimited, DC Universe Infinite and Marvel Comics online.

In fact, according to our 2025 data, a growing proportion of Gen Z – 66% – is identifying as readers, up 14 percentage points from 2022. In the previous 12 months, 65% of Gen Z read at least one print book, up from 59% in 2022. These findings roughly correspond with those of the Pew Research Center for the general population across all ages.

In other words, Gen Z shows us that reading isn’t dying. It’s changing.

A postdigital generation of readers

Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with internet access from an early age. Kids born from 1997 to 2012 came of age during what researchers describe as the postdigital condition, where the option to be online is constantly and pervasively available. Nowadays, no matter your age, engaging with printed books and other physical media – vinyl records, film cameras, DVDs – represents a deliberate choice rather than the only way to access media.

To Gen Z, physical books carry a different meaning than they do for older generations.

A longing for “digital detox” is a part of why print books are Gen Z’s top preferred reading format, according to our data. Perhaps that’s because printed books don’t ping or track you. They look great when posted on Instagram or in BookTok, TikTok’s influential online reading community. You can loan books or give them as gifts. And used books bear the traces of other humans. You could argue that these physical qualities actually make books more alluring than they were in the days before the internet and social media.

Across three nationally representative surveys – conducted in 2020, 2022 and 2025 – we collected data about a wide swath of Gen Z’s reading behavior. It ranged from reading text messages, game chats and emails to reading printed books, manga and fan fiction. We asked respondents about book “engagement,” which gave them permission to include reading that isn’t intended to be finished, such as cookbooks and travel guides. We also asked them questions about their uses of social media, AI and libraries.

In 2025, Gen Zers visited bookstores and public libraries more than they did in 2022. About 36% of Gen Zers said they found a book through a librarian, up from 15% in 2022. We also asked about their experiences of loneliness, with 85% saying they wanted to find another place to relax outside their home. Gen Zers who didn’t visit libraries had higher loneliness scores than those who did.

Nearly one-third bought a book in a physical bookstore, which was their preferred place to find new books, ahead of Amazon.

The market appears to be responding: The American Booksellers Association notes a 70% increase in independent bookstores in the past five years. In 2026 alone, Barnes & Noble plans to open 60 new stores across the U.S.

Postdigital doesn’t mean postliterate

Current methods to measure recreational reading aren’t capturing data that reveals the full scope of how Gen Z reads.

In a 2025 journal article that describes a decline in recreational reading over two decades, one of the co-authors, Jill Sonke, calls an annual 3% drop in the time that Americans spend reading as “not just a small dip – it’s a sustained, steady decline.” This “loss,” she adds, is “significant and deeply concerning.”

The study’s authors, however, used an imperfect tool to analyze this decline: the American Time Use Survey.

That survey records respondents’ activities over one 24-hour “diary day.” The survey’s definition of reading includes time spent reading printed books or magazines, reading on a Kindle or other e-reader, and listening to audiobooks. But it doesn’t capture platform-based reading or the book-related activities that happen online: reading and writing fan fiction; BookTok and Bookstagram; and reading or writing online reviews for Goodreads. These activities are known as postdigital reading practices, and they’re almost never addressed in reading surveys.

In her August 2026 cover story, “The End of Reading is Here,” Atlantic staff writer Rose Horowitch goes further, arguing that the U.S. has become “postliterate.”

Horowitch focuses on one very specific form of literacy: sustained close reading of complex literary texts. Throughout the essay, she treats this ability as encompassing all forms of literacy.

When she points to a study of students who struggled to interpret the opening pages of Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House,” she concludes that many “didn’t even know how to go about figuring out what they didn’t understand, or they didn’t bother.”

But literacy researchers have long argued that literacy involves far more than reading novels or parsing Victorian prose. It includes the ability to interpret, evaluate and create meaning across a range of texts, media and social contexts.

Make it a party

Identifying as a reader used to mean sitting alone with a book. That is less true for Gen Z than any previous generation. Gen Zers are more likely to experience reading as a social activity.

The growing popularity of silent reading parties, where groups of people come together to read quietly and independently, suggests that Gen Zers enjoy finding community around books, even as they immerse themselves in a largely solitary act. We also note how some young people are bridging the distance between story worlds and real life by participating in literary cosplaying, in which readers dress up as characters from their favorite books and gather at conventions or themed events. Then there’s “book excerpt aesthetics” – a social media trend in which readers post memorable passages and quotations from books.

That’s all on top of annual book festivals across the U.S. that bring together readers of all ages. The 2025 Portland Book Festival, headlined by romantasy author Rebecca Yarros, sold out for the first time ever.

Reading is certainly changing, but it’s far from dead. And with Gen Zers still eager to see themselves as readers who discover, discuss and share books with one another, we think the future for bookworms is bright. 

(Kathi Inman Berens is a Professor of Book Publishing and Digital Humanities, Portland State University; Rachel Noorda is an Associate Professor of Publishing, Portland State University)