3 Numbers That Made Me Believe Children’s Love for Reading Is in Danger

Boredom, book ownership, and the 2000s tech explosion

Years ago, I got caught out trying to argue that tea is more thirst-quenching than water because I’d read it in a scientific study.

Said research turned out to be sponsored by — you guessed it — an international tea company. To avoid a repeat of this embarrassment, I now approach studies with a touch more attention to the legitimacy and interests of the sources.

So when I became aware of a disturbing trend in a report from the National Literacy Trust, revealing that children enjoy reading less now than at any point since 2005, I hesitated. The National Literacy Trust are probably pretty biased, I mused. Maybe they just want to increase book sales.

But reading ‘since 2005’ made me pause. I’m a technologist at heart, having grown up building PCs from the age of 10, and later working across IT, digital, and broadcast TV. I absorb tech trends. So I’m inherently aware that 2005 was slap-bang in the middle of one of the most pivotal periods of technology change online that affects us today — particularly marking the beginning of the ongoing global social media experiment.

Just a few choice Silicon Valley triumphs from this era:

• In 2004, Facebook launched

• In 2005, YouTube launched

• In 2006, Twitter launched

• In 2007, the iPhone launched

Could it be that this explosion of technology and the influx of entertainment that flooded our lives since this time has had an impact on something as fundamental as our children’s love for reading?

I know, I know, correlation does not imply causation. But whether devices, or social media, are a cause of this downward trend, I’ve since decided to seek answers, because everywhere I looked I saw the same signs.

Here are 3 numbers that that made me believe children’s love for reading is in danger:

Number 1 — 34.6%.

34.6% of children in the UK said they enjoy reading in 2024.

I feel a sense of loss for the 2 in 3 children who state they don’t enjoy reading¹. Loss for the characters, the journeys, the adventures that they won't witness. For the worlds they will never visit.

NB, this figure was 51.4% just twenty years ago.

Number 2 — 500,000.

500,000 children in the UK (1 in 15) don’t own a single book.²

As a child, I consider myself fortunate that my mum collected children’s books, and inspired us to read (more on this in a later post). I’d love to research more into whether book ownership leads to enjoyment of reading.

It seems undeniable to me that without access to books, the chance of children accidentally falling in love with stories is close to nil.

Number 3 — 2.

2 hours is the time an average child in the UK spends on TikTok every day.³ That doesn't account for additional screen time on YouTube, Snapchat, or other social media.

I grew up in Bolton, an invariably grey and wet town in the North of England. On one particularly miserable weekend, I recall being so bored that I made a (working) violin out of cardboard and elastic bands for strings. The next week I took it to my primary school, where it was shown to the whole assembly.

Now I’m not saying if TikTok had existed, I wouldn’t have been bored enough to do that.

Or am I?

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When I was a teenager, I slowly realised I needed glasses when I was having to sit closer to the whiteboard in class. I was reluctant, but I still remember the sensation of putting glasses on for the first time — not only was the world sharper, but somehow it felt there was more colour in the world.

If our children don’t grow to love reading, elements of their world will remain blurry and grey. Their tools for coping with challenges will be dulled. Their ability to study will be hampered. But most importantly, they will miss out on a joy that children have inherited for hundreds of years, as their minds take black and white words on a page and bring them to life in extraordinary technicolour detail.

1. ‘Children and young people’s reading in 2024’, National Literacy Trust (2024)

2. ‘Children and young people’s reading in 2022’, National Literacy Trust (2022)

3. Statista, UK, ages 4-18 (2023)