Reading for fun is going extinct. Not reading for work, or for school, or because a self-help podcast told you to—but reading for no reason other than you felt like it. That kind is in freefall.

According to a massive study just published in iScience, the number of Americans who read for pleasure every day has nosedived from 28 percent in 2004 to just 16 percent in 2023. Researchers from the University of Florida and the University of London crunched data from over 236,000 adults across two decades, and watched reading as a pastime slowly evaporate.

“This is not just a small dip,” said Jill Sonke, one of the study’s authors, in a press release. “It’s significant, and it’s deeply concerning.” And not just because books are generally just…good. Studies link recreational reading to improved

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