Among many U.S. children, reading for fun has become less common

We debate this in our home all the time. While I wish my kids read as much as we did when we were there age, I've also come to realize that much of this is about how they learn and the media available to them. For example - my son is very interested in history as I was at his age. While I spent hours reading, he has access to video content that simply wasn't available to me. Would it be better if he were reading that content rather than watching videos on YouTube? That's a real debate. Even saying something highbrow like - well, scholars (IE: trusted material) are still writing books, they aren't doing their thesis as video... well, you might be right, but there's so much crap being produced in all forms that it feels like it's more about the source than the medium.

Videos, video games, and internet-delivered information have largely replaced books as recreation for children and adults.

For me personally, most of the offline reading I do is either work or work-adjacent, and when I try to read fiction it now feels like work rather than recreation.

YouTube has replaced the high quality blog. All the good content has migrated to video. I spent days looking for good garden blogs and found a dessert but videos are plentiful. Reading to learn has really gone downhill

Reading quickly with deep comprehension is a superpower. Arts and culture of reading aside, kids that don’t read much limit themselves in the pace they can learn and advance.

The boomers grew up with three TV channels broadcasting about sixteen hours a day. (And when small they didn't get to stay up to see the test pattern come on.) Their families rented phones from AT&T; they not only didn't have pictures on the phones, they often as not had party lines (which did offer entertainment in some cases). So, yes, we likely did read more for fun, though it wasn't always a particularly high-grade version.