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My job as a book reviewer was the envy of people at cocktail parties who fantasized about a life spent reading. Partygoers are now more likely to sheepishly confess that they don’t read as much as they would like. It’s as if I were trying to give you a quiz about Moby Dick.
As Irish novelist Anne Enright recalled to me at a panel commemorating the book’s 100th anniversary in 2022, the days when James Joyce’s Ulysses captivated us are long gone. On my college bookshelf sat a 1,000-page copy of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. have a similar purpose.
Nowadays, even literature students no longer read long books. Sir Jonathan Bate, a Shakespeare scholar who teaches at universities in the United States and Britain, recently lamented this decline. Forty years ago, “I could have said to my students, ‘This week it’s Dickens.’ Read Great Expectations, David Copperfield and The Bleak House,” he told BBC Radio 4. “Now, instead of reading three novels a week, many students will struggle to finish one novel in three weeks.”
A recent survey by the charity Reading Agency found that just half of British adults regularly read for fun, down from 58% in 2015. Even more troubling, 35% have given up reading, a hobby they once enjoyed. My cocktail party confessors, some of whom are novelists, say they now scroll in bed more than read. And who can blame them? Social media is designed to hijack our attention through stimulation and validation in a way that makes it difficult for the technology on the page to compete.
Neuroscientist Marianne Wolff, author of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain In A Digital World, explains that although our brains are primed for language acquisition, we are not naturally programmed to read. That doesn’t mean it’s true. Reading is a learned skill. But brain plasticity is a take-it-or-lose-it thing, and we are increasingly choosing to lose it. The Oxford University Press word for 2024 was “brain rot.” This refers to both the “low-quality, low-value content” found online and the intellectual degradation caused by its overconsumption. First recorded in Henry David Thoreau’s 1854 book Walden, this year’s increase in usage is (ironically) attributed to references in TikTok videos.
Social media releases dopamine, which can make reading seem like more effort than social media. But the reward is worth the extra effort. Regular readers report experiencing increased happiness and life satisfaction, benefiting from improved sleep, focus, connection, and creativity. Just six minutes of reading has been shown to reduce stress levels by two-thirds, while deep reading offers additional cognitive rewards in the form of critical thinking, empathy, and self-reflection.
Ella Bertude, a bibliotherapist who offers personalized book “prescriptions” and co-author with Susan Elderkin of “The Novel Cure: An A to Z of Literary Remedies,” says her clients want more He says he is increasingly asking for guidance on how to read books. To build a reading habit, she tries out audiobooks, creates a reading corner to read paper books, and keeps a reading diary, as note-taking helps commit what she reads to memory. I recommend that you put it on. For those looking to accomplish two New Year’s resolutions with one stone, Berthoud demonstrates his well-coordinated feats of hula-hooping while reading.
If your reading streak is atrophied, Berthoud says it may be easier to start small with short stories and novellas, rather than delving into an annotated version of “Ulysses.” Recent bite-sized favorites include New Directions’ Storybook collection, which is designed to be read in one sitting, and books from Peirene, an indie publisher specializing in novels-in-translation.
While the fiction market is booming with genres like crime, fantasy, and romance popular on BookTok (an influential reading community within TikTok), nonfiction sales have declined significantly year-over-year. The myth that nonfiction is easier to skim has led to the emergence of apps like Blinkist, Headway, and StoryShots that offer book summaries that appear to be primarily generated by AI. But even putting aside issues of copyright and AI accuracy, reading is not just about efficiency. Good nonfiction provides conversation as well as information. By following the author’s thought process, your monkey’s thinking ability will be effectively trained.
My favorite nonfiction book of the year, and a great antidote to brain rot, is Stranger Than Fiction: A Life of 20th Century Novel by Edwin Frank. Covering 33 books with a bibliography of further reading recommendations, it’s both a way to practice deep reading and a portal to reconnect with some of history’s greatest works.
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Maria Popova, a writer and essayist who founded the literary website The Marginalian, once described literature as the “original Internet,” where every reference and footnote is a “hyperlink to another text.” I expressed it. The advantage is that you can get lost in this analog internet without viral content jumping up and down screaming for your attention.
Even if TikTok is banned in the US, other platforms will emerge to replace it. So in 2025, why not replace your phone on your bedside table with a book? By gaining back just one hour a day from screen time, you’ll read about one book a week, and you’ll be… You are among the top 1% of elite readers. Melville (and hula hoop) are optional.
Mia Levitin is a critic and author of The Future of Seduction.
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