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The proportion of those in the US who read for pleasure on any given day has decreased by 2 per cent every year over the past two decades. Although it is unclear why this is the case, researchers wonder if more of our time is now taken up by other activities, such as using social media.

Reading for pleasure has been linked to improved and , as well as , 聽and even a .

Studies that have previously monitored reading rates in the US have produced inconsistent results, with some suggesting and others implying .

Now, at University College London and her colleagues have analysed data from 236,270 people aged 15 and over who completed the American Time Use Survey from 2003 to 2023, which involves respondents detailing their activities over a given day.

The researchers didn鈥檛 wish to comment on their study ahead of it being peer-reviewed, but state in their paper that their approach gives more detail than previous studies and reduces recall errors.

鈥淎sking participants daily about reading habits, rather than asking them to report on an entire year of reading, will almost certainly result in more precise data,鈥� says at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.

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The researchers found that the proportion of survey respondents who read for pleasure on any given day declined by an average of 2 per cent every year from 2003 to 2023. Relative to other groups, there was a steeper decline among Black people, people with lower incomes or levels of education, non-city dwellers and people with disabilities.

The decline could be due to people only having a certain amount of leisure time and limited cognitive capacity, so they focus on other activities, such as using social media, over reading, according to the researchers.

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But they also found that among those who did read for pleasure, the amount of time spent reading rose slightly over the study period, from an average of 1 hour and 20 minutes per day in 2003 to 1 hour and 31 minutes in 2023. The time people spent reading with children was steady over the two decades.

鈥淒eclines in reading are likely due to increases in the use of other forms of leisure, including social media and streaming services,鈥� says Holmes. 鈥淚t may also reflect changing patterns in how much leisure Americans engage in. These are empirical questions that would benefit from further research.鈥�