
T itle: “The Hidden Cost of ‘Saving Time’: A 50-Year Decline in Reading — Secular and Sacred” A 50-Year Reading Decline: What the Data Reveal Over the past several decades, reading rates—both for secular books and the Bible—have declined steadily. This isn’t just nostalgia; empirical studies paint a stark reality. A landmark study from the University of Florida and University College London shows a 40% drop in Americans reading daily for pleasure between 2003 and 2023, averaging a 3% decline per year Wikipedia +15 The Guardian +15 The Washington Post +15 . In 2004, 28% of Americans read for pleasure daily; by 2023, that number had fallen to 16% The Guardian . Complementing this, Gallup’s data shows the average number of books read per year dropped from around 15.6 in 2016 to 12.6 in 2021 . The percentage reading more than 10 books fell from 35% to 27% Sparx Services +5 Gallup.com +5 Medium +5 . Moreover, the National Endowment for the Arts reported that only ...