#statistics use

As Gen Z ditch books at record levels, students are arriving to classrooms unable to complete assigned reading on par with previous expectations. It’s leaving colleges no choice but to lower their expectations. 

One shocked professor has described young adults showing up to class, unable to read a single sentence. 

“It’s not even an inability to critically think,” Jessica Hooten Wilson, a professor of great books and humanities at Pepperdine University told Fortune. “It’s an inability to read sentences.”

Her observation reflects a broader trend: nearly half of all Americans did not read a single book in 2025, with the habit plunging some 40% over the last decade. And even with young people embracing BookTok, a TikTok subcommunity dedicated to books and literature, Gen Z’s reading habits still lag behind all other generations. Americans aged 18 to 29 read on average just 5.8 books in 2025, according to YouGov.

“I feel like I am tap dancing and having to read things aloud because there’s no way that anyone read it the night before,” Wilson admitted. “Even when you read it in class with them, there’s so much they can’t process about the very words that are on the page.”

Students are struggling to read long passages

With students struggling, academics have been forced to adapt—a move critics describe as “coddling.”

For her part, Wilson has turned to reading passages aloud together, discussing them line by line, or repeatedly returning to a single poem or text over the course of a semester—in part so students can begin to develop the skills to read critically on their own and be prepared for their post-graduate career.

“I’m not trying to lower my standards. I just have to have different pedagogical approaches to accomplish the same goal,” Wilson said, adding that she’s taught at five institutions during her 22-year tenure, and more selective ones like Pepperdine tend to have better-prepared students.

For Timothy O’Malley, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, adapting to changes in student behavior hasn’t been especially difficult. It’s always his job to tailor classes to students needs, he argued. What’s more, he said students showing up to class unprepared is nothing new.

Early in his career, O’Malley typically assigned 25 to 40 pages of reading per class —and students would either do it or admit they struggled.

“Today, if you assign that amount of reading, they often don’t know what to do,” O’Malley said—noting that many students instead just lean on AI summaries and miss the point of assigned reading.

He traces part of the problem to earlier stages of education, where reading has been framed as a means to an end rather than a pleasure or habit. Years of standardized testing, he argued, have also trained students to scan for information rather than sit with complex texts.

“They’ve been formed in a kind of scanning approach to reading,” he said—useful for navigating news articles online, but far less effective for engaging with dense novels or philosophical works.

Reading is on the decline—and it could have wide-ranging impacts

One major issue among college students isn’t hostility toward reading so much as a lack of confidence and stamina. 

When professors reduce anxiety around grades, students are often willing to give the reading list a go, according to Brad East, a theology professor at Abilene Christian University. 

In his course, he hasn’t changed reading length or difficulty but rather adjusted assignments in light of generative AI to stimulate real critical thinking.

“It isn’t important to me to have stress-filled cumulative exams, nor do I particularly care about grade inflation,” East told Fortune. “I want them to learn.”

The confidence issue is something that Brooke Vuckovic, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, has seen among business school students. Each term, about 40-50% of her students describe themselves as novice or reluctant readers, but once they are encouraged to begin reading, she said, the shift can be immediate.

And despite Gen Z’s shift away from reading, the habit remains popular among the ultra-wealthy. A JPMorgan survey of more than 100 billionaires released last month found that reading ranks as the top habit that elite achievers have in common.

The consequences of declining literacy extend far beyond grades, classroom performance, or even future careers. Reading, Wilson said, is a way of seeing ideas from other people’s eyes—leading to increased empathy and feeling of community.

“I think losing that polarization, anxiety, loneliness, a lack of friendship, all of these things happen when you don’t have a society that reads together.”

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Okay let's go through this.

"Jessica Hooten Wilson, a professor of great books and humanities at Pepperdine University "

What kind of institution is Pepperdine University?

"Pepperdine University, a Christian university in Malibu, California."

Pepperdine University is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ and with its main campus located in Los Angeles County, California, United States.

Might there be some selection bias? Who chooses to go to a specifically Private Christian university?

"nearly half of all Americans did not read a single book in 2025"

Now the link from that statement is to another article by Preston Fore, but that references this YouGov report:

"Six in 10 Americans (59%) say they read at least one book in 2025, a new YouGov survey finds."

Okay so more than half read at least one book.

"40% of Americans who didn't read any books in 2025"

Who didn't complete reading a single book. But probably read:

Newspapers, in print or online

Business reports

Emails

Short fiction from collections or individually online

Newsletters

Blogs

Essays

And of course: Fanfic.

None of which would qualify as "books", but would certainly qualify as "reading sentences".

"Americans with more education are more likely to read more books"

Not shocking. In some cases they're still in academia and in some cases they're in jobs where reading books is a requirement. Often higher levels of education equates to more time in which to read books.

"On average, Americans 65 and older read significantly more books"

Do we think this might be related to having been in the habit of reading for longer, and having not grown up with reading online as an option?

(There are gender and genre breakdowns later but they're not relevant to our purposes here).

Let's go down to the methodology.

"The poll was conducted among 2,203 U.S. adult citizens on two separate surveys from December 15 - 18, 2025 and December 16 - 19, 2025. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, U.S. region, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. […]"

How possible do you think it might be to accurately scale up from 2,203 responses taken from people who have volunteered to be in this role, to represent around 348,246,102 American residents?

"Americans aged 18 to 29 read on average just 5.8 books in 2025, according to YouGov."

What might the Americans who have not elected to continue with their education have just finished doing at age 18 which might put them off picking up more books? What might Americans who have elected to continue with their education to college level have just finished doing aged 25 which might put them off picking up more books?

"When professors reduce anxiety around grades, students are often willing to give the reading list a go, according to Brad East, a theology professor at Abilene Christian University."

Here we have another specifically religious institution. What background might these pupils be from, and what experiences might they have had which would lead to anxiety around reading and giving correct answers on reading?

"And despite Gen Z’s shift away from reading, the habit remains popular among the ultra-wealthy. A JPMorgan survey of more than 100 billionaires released last month found that reading ranks as the top habit that elite achievers have in common."