The Sunday Times has today launched a campaign to Get Britain Reading after new data showed that people of all ages now read social media posts more often than books.
Among younger British adults, printed books have dropped out of the top three most popular reading formats, falling below subtitles and digital articles.
Decades of research shows that reading for fun can transform lives. It boosts children’s and adults’ mental health and has been found to be more important for a child’s cognitive development between the ages of 10 and 16 than their parents’ level of education.
Yet the proportion of children who never read for enjoyment is rising across every age bracket, according to the National Literacy Trust. One in five children aged 11 to 13 never pick up a book voluntarily and parents are reading less frequently to their children.
One in ten children (9.8 per cent) aged 5 to 18 surveyed by the National Literacy Trust do not have a book of their own.
Secondary school heads say many 11-year-olds arrive in Year 7 still in the early stages of learning to read. The problem affects up to 150,000 children a year in England. The crisis is also hitting our universities. This month it emerged that experts were teaching English literature undergraduates how to concentrate long enough to read lengthy novels. Academics said the students had grown up with phones and often felt intimidated.
With our Get Britain Reading campaign you can:
● Donate to Bookbanks to put books in the hands of those most in need
● Volunteer to read in schools with Coram Beanstalk
● Above all, take our pledge to read for pleasure for at least ten minutes a day for the next six weeks
The leading figures supporting our campaign include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Salman Rushdie, Jamie Oliver, Michael Morpurgo, JK Rowling, Nick Cave, David Nicholls, Jacqueline Wilson, Katherine Rundell, Philip Pullman, Simon Armitage, Robert Harris, Ian McEwan, Anne Fine, Marian Keyes, Quentin Blake and Dolly Alderton.
The scale of the challenge has prompted the government to declare 2026 the National Year of Reading. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said: “It’s incredibly important that children have the chance to read for pleasure, develop a love of reading, because those habits that you build up as a child stay with you for the rest of your life.”
British adults across all age categories are now more likely to read social media posts than any other reading format, according to a report funded by Arts Council England. The survey of 4,000 UK adults by The Reading Agency, a charity, found that subtitles were the second most commonly read format for under- 35s. Print books featured in the top three for those aged 35 and over, as well as either digital articles or print media.
Adults spend eight full days and nights a year reading social media posts, compared with six days reading a book. They were far more likely to “very much enjoy” reading print books than social media (45 per cent versus 23 per cent).
The benefits of taking time out to read in any format are stark. The report found that those who read regularly are 45 per cent more likely to report sleeping well, 58 per cent more likely to report feeling generally happy, 35 per cent more likely to say they do not feel lonely and 32 per cent more likely to say they do not feel anxious or depressed, than non-readers.
We are asking for donations from readers to Bookbanks, a charity that gives away books at food banks. Emily Rhodes,its founder, said: “We see a real hunger for books. Books can take readers on many extraordinary journeys — one of these could well be a journey out of poverty. We are so grateful to The Sunday Times and its readers for helping us raise the funds to reach more of the 2.4 million people accessing food banks in the UK.”
The demise of regular reading among adults is affecting how much parents read to their children. A report by HarperCollins found less than half (41 per cent) of under fives are read to frequently, a steep fall from 64 per cent in 2012. Parents also read less to their sons than their daughters. Only 29 per cent of boys under three are read to every day or nearly every day, compared with 44 per cent of girls.
Coram Beanstalk needs readers’ help to pass on their love of reading to children by volunteering across Britain’s schools. Amy Lewis, head of Coram Beanstalk, said that all children deserved someone to help them build on the skills they learn in school so they can discover the “immersive” enjoyment of books.
Laura Trott, shadow education secretary, said: “On my way to work every morning, it’s hard not to notice adults and children sitting side by side, not talking, not reading, just heads down, faces lit by phone screens. We’re losing the ability to concentrate, to think deeply, and the joy of getting lost in another world ... That’s why The Sunday Times’ Get Britain Reading campaign is so important, and why I’ve pushed so hard to get smartphones out of schools.”
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