33% of high school graduates never read another book again in their lives after graduation.
Let that sink in.
228 million adults in the US, and 75 million of them are committed to never reading.
Sounds a lot like the voting block for a certain orange fascist…
Hey just FYI, that statistic is bullshit
Even Brewer, the author of the infographic, publicly admitted in 2012 that he couldn’t back up any of the statistics and asked people to stop sharing it. Brewer claims to have used statistics from a survey by an organization called the Jenkins Group, though the group itself says the statistics were incorrectly attributed to them. Brewer has never been able to provide any other source of the numbers he used in the infographic.
The questionable statistics seem to have originally come from a 2011 Mental Floss article, which claimed to have taken them from a Jenkins survey from 2003. Mental Floss has updated the original article saying they have no idea where the statistics came from, either.
I’d say it’s probably a lot more in line with the ones who didn’t vote at all. I know everyone likes to say “conservative dumb,” but we’re all aware there are plenty of educated conservatives, probably just as many dumb liberals. The true dumb are the ones who sit out an election. That’s “I don’t read” dumb.
In a typical modern democracy, turnout for general elections is usually around the 80% mark. I don’t think the difference can be explained just by Americans being “dumber.”
I haven’t read a book in like 8 years :/
Read “Project Hail Mary” … It was an easy, quick read, and really enjoyable.
“And then there were none” (formerly “Ten little indians”) by agatha christie is a another easy, enjoyable read.
There are book communities on the Fediverse that could help motivate you to read.
Yeah, but you’re not anti-book. It’s different if you just don’t have time / energy right now. There are literally millions of people who just…like, don’t believe in it.
Yeah. I just don’t crave it I guess. i still read the news once a day.
Books are so much better than the news.
Yeah. Responsibilities suck T_T
I used to read. I used to love reading. What happened to me? Now I just buy books for them to sit on my shelf collecting dust :(
I should read a book.
To be fair, I read little nowadays, but audiobooks where I can listen to seties while doing laundry, or trash, or DIY projects… I blasted through Cosmere 2 years ago, plus the Dresden series, Noobtown, DCC, Demon Mart, He Who Fights with Monsters last year, and this year (and past two months) the Wandering Inn series (Book 12 now). I enjoy books far more than film and tv, mostly due to speed at which I can devour the content (1.75x usually).
Everything published at or below 6th grade reading level
Americans consume this content almost exclusively
The median reader consumes at or below the 6th grade level
even ivy league students don’t read books anymore.
College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different.
I love Vibes Based Reporting.
Twenty years ago, Dames’s classes had no problem engaging in sophisticated discussions of Pride and Prejudice one week and Crime and Punishment the next. Now his students tell him up front that the reading load feels impossible. It’s not just the frenetic pace; they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.
As someone who was in college twenty years ago, I’ve got to say there’s no way in hell I could make it through an entire novel in a week while balancing the rest of my course load. Either I’m reading the Cliff’s Notes or I’m not getting it done. I also ran a 15-hour course study in hopes of landing a triple major in four years (bad idea, kids!), but even with a more conservative 12-hour load, imagine this plus 3 other classes making the same demands on your time.
This isn’t a new problem. It is, perhaps, a problem that the current generation of students no longer has the cheat-codes to navigate. But doggedly insisting people were housing a 400-page book in a week and retaining it for meaningful discussion? Get fucked, dude. Nobody was actually doing that ever.
If you could come to the table talking about these novels, its because you already read them in High School, not because you consumed them in a week in your hectic freshman year.
I was in college 20 years ago too. I read multiple books per week for fun, often on top of my regular coursework. It wasn’t hard, it was just a matter of priorities. My priority was to learn. I probably read 500 pages a week on average.
Your presumption is wild. You basically think because you didn’t do the work, nobody could, or should do it. You are part of the problem here. Reading a 400 page novel is not that time consuming dude, esp in college. In my AP English class we read one every 2-3 weeks.
Rather than rise to the challenge of learning, you want to pretend that it’s an onerous requirement that nobody could possible attain. What, so you can party more, or dick around on the internet? Are you the type who goes to book clubs and doesn’t read the book and then thinks anyone who did is a stupid nerd? I’ve definitely encountered plenty of those people in my book clubs, which is precisely why I don’t do them anymore.
I probably read 500 pages a week on average.
Pride and Prejudice alone is 400 pages. Crime and Punishment is another 600 pages. If you have two Lit classes in the same semester, you’re going to have to double that rate or fall behind schedule. Nevermind retention.
I remember sitting in a library surrounded by books, struggling to solve the 15 problems a class Engineering Physics assigned. Just a fist full of brain-teasers day in and day out. Three of us working together managed to clear the load in a couple of hours. Then on to the next assignment, which was another two or three hours. Five classes a day, you’re lucky when you have enough time to sleep.
I’ll admit, I did a few summers at a community college and that workload was much smaller, the tests were far easier, and the graders significantly more forgiving. Crazy how little work it takes to ace an exam in High School Plus relative to a University weed-out program.
I fail to see the point of any of what you are talking about.
You weren’t taking English classes, what do you care about the workload in them?
You weren’t taking English classes
Wasn’t I? Could have sworn my transcript says otherwise.
So what are you mad about? that you had to read books in English class?
Why were you taking english class if you don’t want to read books?
Are you angry you had to do engineering problems in engineering class too? Sounds like it.
$20 bucks says this guys “regular coursework” was liberal arts BS lol
Some of us studied actually challenging stuff, mate
Literary and technical literacy are orthogonal. All you’re achieving here is to denigrate yourself.
Nah, but when someone is acting like a prat, I’ll give it right back to’em. I maintained a 4.0 GPA through medical school, and have read so many god damn books. Doesn’t make me smarter or better.
right, anyone who reads books that aren’t engineering is an idiot, right?
So what makes me stupider, my minor in mathematics, or my minor in music? because both are ‘useless’ fields.
I didn’t say you were stupid, but YOU said
I read multiple books per week for fun, often on top of my regular coursework. It wasn’t hard, it was just a matter of priorities. My priority was to learn.
So because I didn’t read extra books on the side, my priority wasn’t to learn? pretty insulting.
You are part of the problem here. Reading a 400 page novel is not that time consuming dude
Even more insults!
Rather than rise to the challenge of learning, you want to pretend that it’s an onerous requirement that nobody could possible attain. What, so you can party more, or dick around on the internet? Are you the type who goes to book clubs and doesn’t read the book and then thinks anyone who did is a stupid nerd?
Yeah, your whole comment and subsequent attempts has you coming off like an arrogant prick. The books the original poster mentioned? I read those in middle school mate, so I guess that makes me even smarter than your pretentious ass. And that’s why I wrote a snotty comment.
I used to teach. My lazy students told me I was an arrogant prick too. They usually got Cs and would leave me angry reviews about how stupid my course was and how dare I make them try hard because what is the point I was going to give them a bad grad because i didn’t like them personally.
My students who did the readings, showed up to class, wrote good papers, to enjoy my class and usually got As.
Weird how that works. It’s OK if you don’t like to read man, but don’t go around generalizing that your lack of drive and interest in the topic necessitates that it’s a waste of time for everyone else.
I would guess you don’t run marathons either. Are people who run marathons wasting their time too? Or should they just take blood dope?
Not to rain on the anti-US sentiment here, but this isn’t far off from most other western/developed/colonial/whatever (aka members of OECD) countries. I don’t know what study they’re talking about in the article, since they never cite their source, but here’s the results from a similar survey from 2013 (PIAAC study).
In terms of literacy, only 6/24 countries are reading at Level 3 (roughly equivalent to what other studies describe as “above a 6th grade level”, it does not track 1:1 since again I don’t know which study they’re using initially) and the remainder are reading at Level 2 (I feel comfortable describing it as “at or below a 6th grade reading level” based off the criteria used in other studies).
The US for sure has an education problem, but it’s not as dire as this article makes it sound. In the above PIAAC study, the difference in literacy is only ~20% between the top score of 296.2 (Japan) and the bottom of 250.5 (Italy), and at 269.8 (USA) is only ~10% behind Japan in terms of mean score. We should absolutely be doing better, we’re among the worst for non-starters and < Level 1 (illiterate and partially illiterate respectively), but when looking at the values in context we’re not really doing all that egregiously compared to other OECD countries.
(edit: spelling)
A nerdy side note:
I question the relevancy of the < Level 1 statistics, as the controls for partial literacy do not appear to have been robust for non-native speakers of the survey languages. This may have been by design, but given the high rate of invalidation due to language incompatibilities seen in other studies, I am hesitant to draw conclusions from that value without a clearer understanding of the methodology. Partial literacy due to language incompatibility is extremely easy to mask for basic questions, but imho should differentiated better from partial literacy among native speakers.
I just can’t imagine how hard life would be to be illiterate. And me knowing me, id take it upon myself to learn to read if the educational system and my parents had failed me – I truly believe that. Is illiterate/partially illiterate a result of low IQ in every instance, or whats going on there?
Human meat brains are lazy. They want to do the minimum amount of work to meet their biological needs. Getting them to want to do more involves rewiring their reward structure to associate fulfillment, either internal or external, with doing more. We can talk about the myriad ways that someone can miss the developmental milestones to encourage that, but that’s what’s going on.
No, it’s absolutely not just due to low IQ - PIAAC did not control for cognative or linguistic difficulties with completing the survey beyond the strict inability to complete the background information (“Name” “Date” style of questions), which even true illiterate people are generally able to recognize through exposure. The study does not make conclusions about it, but it seems reasonable to confirm that the population of non-starters and <Level 1 participants (who made up approx 1/50 of the total US population at the time) would consist of people with very low IQs and all other potential difficulties with completing the survey, such as learning disabilities, dyslexia, language barriers, etc. both of a severity that they could not engage at all and less severe, meaning they could engage very minimally but enough to still be included as a participant.
(The rates at which that was the case are outside the scope of the study though they do propose several reasons for people being unable to participate, but could be looked into country-by-country if you’re curious)
when you don’t know things, the things you don’t know don’t exist.
it’s cognitively easier to be dumb than it is to be smart.
just like it’s easier to sit on a couch all day watching TV eating processed foods, than it is to run a marathon and cook healthy food.
It’s not a matter of IQ, it’s a matter of money. Marathon runners are 80% college educated, and make 130K per year, and come from families that are college-educated and wealthy.
Marathon runners don’t come from working-class poor rural families.
Oh so then they’re fully qualified to be ICE. No intelligence required. In fact, intelligence hurts your chances.
Thats LITERALLY what police in my area were advertising 10 years ago for a hiring event.
They had fliers for a big hiring event that said “High school diploma not required. Dropouts encouraged to apply”
I remember seeing it and saying “Well this can only end well.” in a very sarcastic tone.
That was the goal of the Republicans. When US was in the middle of the cold war, schools were pushing STEM because military and industry needed STEM graduates, but the side effect of education is left leaning voters. So since the 60s, the US education system has degraded to the point that college sports scholarship grads can be illiterate.
So the gap in tech was filled in with H1b Visa people trained at proper universities.
in 2025, Harvard students don’t even attend lectures. They still get As because they paid for As.
The system was degraded because of the local tax revolts in the 1970s, which were perpetuated by Democrats and Republicans alike. The citizenry decided they no longer wanted to pay property taxes and education funding collapsed in many states. It was also a consequence of white flight, and other social changes in the 1970s in response to the civil rights victories.
Republicans capitalized on it in the 1980s and made it a national issue and the voters loved it. People loved Reagan, he was incredibly popular and crushed Mondale winning every state expect for MN.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidential_election
Going to be in for a surprise when they go looking for skilled workers for all of our high tech (including defense) industries.
Could we get an archive link? That article is pay walled.
Thanks! 🙏
Now who benefits from a poorly educated populace?
Follow the fuckin money.
As an avid audio book listener I really thought the rise of podcasts would make americans more literate but it seems like it had an inverse effect.
What’s going on in the US? Is the water poisoned with heavy metals or something? The mental decline is palpable.
listening to harry potter audio books isn’t going to make anyone more literate.
becoming more literate would require listening to audio books that challenge one cognitively.
most readers aren’t doing that. they mostly read crap that is easy and re-enforces their existing viewpoints.
just look at best seller lists in audio book or paper book. lots of crap.
Now who benefits from a poorly educated populace?
I really thought the rise of podcasts would make americans more literate
How? Podcasts are literally just people talking.
It is unfortunante that this was propably planned in order to result in a workforce that doesn’t question things.
I hope i’m not in that 54%.
no worry u smrt man
i am smort
*smrot
fiksed that 4 u
hahahah wut a ijit
I hope they didn’t burn their diploma.
“Are you smarter than a 6th grader?”
“What? That seems like such a low bar to make a whole game show off of. Wouldn’t it have basically a 100% rate of contestants winning? I mean, they’re using adults. Might be a bit more interesting if they use a bunch of 2nd graders that are said to be gifted.”
(Show comes out)
“…so it appears I was wrong, and this country is fucked.”
(Decades go by, and we’re now in present day)
“See? We’re fucked.”
I know an illiterate who is very clever and knows the score. All this heading means is that 54% of americans have trouble understanding or making out what the propaganda thrown at them means.
Goes a bit farther than that. I have a family friend who struggles to read the menus at restaurants. But she’s also desperately poor, a high school drop out, and regularly between jobs in a service sector that’s totally unforgiving to people in her position.
I do think there’s a reinforcing cycle of “Everything is written at the 6th grade level” -> “Everyone communicates at the 6th grade level”. But I also don’t think these articles do a good job of defining the difference between a 4th grade, 8th grade, 12th grade, collegiate level. So when you see this statistic, its not entirely clear what the problem is, per say. Like, what isn’t being communicated beyond 6th grade literacy levels that people need?
Per the article:
Here’s the ugly truth nobody wants to admit: a barely literate population is a controllable population.
Can’t read complex policy documents? Perfect. You’ll vote based on slogans and fear. Can’t analyze contradictory news sources? Excellent. You’ll believe whatever authority figure shouts loudest. Can’t understand financial fine print? Outstanding. You’ll sign predatory loans and carry crippling debt forever.
…
Mental health outcomes are catastrophic. Depression rates have skyrocketed. Anxiety disorders are endemic. Suicide rates have surged, particularly among young people who inherit this deteriorating nightmare and see no viable future.
…
The economic cost of illiteracy alone is staggering — research shows that raising every American adult to sixth-grade reading level would generate an additional $2.2 trillion annually.
Few citations, lots of big claims and speculative statements, the tendency to catastrophize (and inject implicit nostalgia) as though 6th grade literacy trends are a shocking new development rather than the historical baseline.
None of it really translates into actionable policy. All it seems to do is feed the prevailing Everyone is Stupid Except Me self-aggrandizing outlook. I tend to see these articles paired with the inevitable reactionary “We should impose literacy tests on voting” and “Would have this problem if not for all the damned rednecks / illegals / minorities / <insert reviled social group here>” outlooks.
Can’t read complex policy documents? Perfect. You’ll vote based on slogans and fear. Can’t analyze contradictory news sources? Excellent. You’ll believe whatever authority figure shouts loudest. Can’t understand financial fine print? Outstanding. You’ll sign predatory loans and carry crippling debt forever.
I mean. I worked in public policy for a few years. Most of the policy makers, the politicians, and their staff… can’t do any of that either. Despite the fact most of them have multiple degrees.
But they sure as shit can shout about how stupid it all is and now their gut feelings about taxation are more important than the policy paper a taxation economist writes about it after years of doing research on it. When our highly educated professional politicians can’t pass that standards, I’m not really going to fault the broader public who have a high school diploma at best, for not being able to do so.
There are a lot of brilliant people in our government… but nobody is listening to them. The majority of my highl educated highly literate peers here in Boston… also don’t listen to them. They just ‘know’ that all taxes are bad. mmkay?
I remember reaching high school and MANY students reading out loud at the level I’d expect an early grade schooler to. Struggling with uncomplicated words. It was honestly pretty cringy.
Can’t say I didn’t see this coming.
Suddenly a felon rapist pedophile insurrectionist being our leader makes a lot of sense.
Just enough to win elections
What is this trash article. It throws numbers out with completely no basis for doing so. I don’t even know that I necessarily disagree with them, or the thought that America is probably not as literate as it ought to be, but this article is someone yelling into the void.
So to the OP, I’m not sure how one could suggest they learned anything from this article but the author’s opinion.
The article makes several bold statements and cites zero sources. I don’t see any reason to believe it.
And vote at a 5 yr old level.
