Another cause of and solution to?
Social media.
From The Daily Beacon:
Before the internet, people read books for enjoyment and pleasure. While some watched television, many young people read for entertainment. However, with the rise of the digital age and social media in the early 2010s, reading declined tremendously.
Young people used to be avid readers, especially in the era of releases like “Twilight” by Stephanie Meyer and “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins.
A study done by a professor of psychology, Jean Twenge, and the American Psychological Association in 2018 found that in 2016, one in three high school seniors did not read a book for fun, and 82% of seniors were on social media sites every day.
The study also found that in the 1970s, 60% of high school seniors reported reading a physical form of print, whether that be a book, magazine or newspaper — and this percentage has been steadily declining for years.
The internet led to an increase in Amazon users, so people who were reading for fun were doing a lot of purchasing online. This meant that the internet quickly became a problem for publishing companies, chain bookstores and independent bookstores. These businesses were seeing major declines in sales.
For years, because many young people stopped reading for fun due to social media apps, and it negatively impacted the book world. However, the internet brought literature back to life with the rise of TikTok.
And:
While social media has often been known to cause mental health issues among younger people, it has also given people an avenue to share their love for books and even create a successful career from just creating content on books. It has revived the publishing industry and has allowed new bookstores to open across the country, as well as influences people to pick up books.
“When I posted my first ever book haul on YouTube I remember being so nervous because no one had ever wanted to talk to me about books before, so why would anyone on the internet want to either?” Alexa Fadeley-Amoia, a YouTube creator with over 60,000 subscribers, said.
Statistics?