Everyone Says Zoomers Stopped Reading; Everyone's Looking in the Wrong Place

Every few years for the past hundred years, someone declarers the death of reading. The pronouncements of literary doom have gotten predictable enough to set your watch by.

Movies were supposed to kill books. Then radio was predicted to deliver the death blow. Surely, the experts told us, Television would put paid to reading. When those prophecies failed, the “Print is dead” crowd went all-in on video games, smartphones, and social media.

Breathless reports circulated of late claimed to have brought proof that Generation Z would deal reading its death blow. But dig into the evidence, and you see that it paints a more complex picture.

A recent article in The Conversation argues that much of the panic over Gen Z’s reading habits stems from looking in the wrong places. Past surveys asked if young people identify as readers. Now, researchers have examined how Zoomers actually consume stories.

The result surprised everyone. Many members of Gen Z who insist they “aren’t readers” nonetheless regularly consume books, audiobooks, manga, fan fiction, and serialized stories across multiple formats.

It turns out that people don’t stop loving stories just because they exit legacy distribution channels.

For decades, the publishing industry assumed bookstores were synonymous with books. Then Amazon launched the Kindle. Hollywood conflated theaters and movies, only to get schooled by streaming. Journos equated news with newspapers. Now the vast majority of younger people get their news online.

Each time, observers confused a change in distribution for a decline in demand. And they’re making the same mistake with reading.

Read the full post on Substack.

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