alt Hacker News> Nearly half of all Americans didn’t read a single book in 2025, with the habit falling roughly 40% over the past decade
I don't think this is a great metric of literacy. For one not all books are exactly high quality, and now more than ever there's a plethora of non-book written content available to us.
I used to read a lot of books when I was in school but these days I rarely do, however I probably consume more written word than ever. News, blogs, documentation, various and sundry articles. I read a lot, just not books anymore.
Replies
One of the smartest people I’ve met in my life is a plumber, who failed 5th grade and never went back to school. He can’t even read/write basic sentences in his native language and he can only speak one language, his native. Yet, he is able to figure out how to use all settings on smartphones on his own, plan plumbing for large properties, has high level people skills, is the president of his union etc. other than computers/scrabble, I am probably not even half as smart as this person, and I have a masters degree (for what it is worth).
All this to say, I don’t understand “number of books read” as a metric of smartness or literacy or intelligence. Maybe it is easier to survey this metric and collect data? Sounds lazy research to me.
There are more than enough ‘high quality’ books to fill a lifetime of reading…
>I don't think this is a great metric of literacy
That's like saying drinking water is not a great metric of hydration.
>For one not all books are exactly high quality, and now more than ever there's a plethora of non-book written content available to us.
Yes, I'm pretty sure those 50%+ of people who "didn't read a single book" did it to avoid all the less than high quality books, or because they were busy consuming high quality non-book written content online.