Ava Ritter and Isabella Kennedy

   A worsening literacy crisis is sweeping all across America. The rise in social media and online learning creates an environment where student attention spans can be short, and everything thrown at them requires little to no extensive thought. 

   According to the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), reading scores for high school seniors have been steadily decreasing since 2015. In 2019, the average reading score on the SAT was 531, but during and after Covid, scores began dropping steadily, and the average reading score in 2025 was 521. This drop can be attributed to both online learning during Covid, and the increasing prevalence of AI and social media in students’ lives. 

    According to a Gallup poll, teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media. That’s 4.8 hours they don’t spend reading or learning, and its negative effects are already being seen in schools. Reading for pleasure has decreased sharply among teens, driven primarily by the increase of social media. Spending a large amount of time on social media has been linked to declining attention spans, which in turn contributes to students struggling to read deeply and understand what they’re reading. It’s gotten to a point where reading in public is seen as performative. Simply reading for pleasure has become very uncommon among young people, and the reactions of people upon seeing someone else doing so demonstrates how detrimental it really is: people think those who read in a public spaces are seeking attention, likely because they couldn’t imagine reading for fun themselves, and the idea of someone doing it out of their own volition just for enjoyment is preposterous.

   The literacy crisis is being perpetuated in part by classes that withdraw from books and written work as students demonstrate less and less interest and ability. However, many schools are working to prevent the crisis from worsening by putting in new practices that improve those skills. 

   “There are more and more of you who haven’t finished a book in a while, or haven’t hand written something without relying on a computer. So, we’re going back to those fundamental and foundational skills that require critical thinking, and require you to think of original ideas on your own,” English teacher Ms. Choi said.

   Literacy and reading comprehension are important skills that students need to succeed in for the workforce and in university. The decreasing competence of these skills means the world is facing a generation of people who lack the ability to process information critically and act accordingly. Changing this trajectory starts with changing school curriculums. By getting schools to prioritize reading and teaching the students both comprehension and literacy, we have the option to reach millions of students and reverse the decline in literacy in time to avoid more devastating effects.