Why Can't Americans Read?

Why Can't Americans Read?

The average human has an attention span of just 8.25 seconds – 4.25 seconds less than in 2000. By the time you finish reading this sentence, the average reader will have clocked out. Bitch, that’s scary. When I think about the future, there are two things that petrify me with fear more than anything else. The first is deep fake artificial intelligence technology. The second is the fact that people aren’t reading— and I need everybody to be honest about it. Everybody across the political spectrum. Im not talking about self-help books or YouTube video captions or twitter threads or news headlines at the center of viral tweets— I’m talking about sitting down and reading various sources—articles, essays, books— on any given topic to form your own opinion over time. It’s time for a rant. How many people already clicked away from this video, their attention span unable to continue? Are they reading? Are they keeping their brain good at reading long things?  54% of Americans between the ages of 16 and 24— according to data collected by the Department of Education in 2012, 2014, and 2017—  read below a 6th grade level.

Per Forbes, “Level 1 adults struggled to understand texts beyond filling out basic forms, and they find it difficult to make inferences from written material. Adults at Level 2 can read well enough to evaluate product reviews and perform other tasks requiring comparisons and simple inferences, but they’re unlikely to correctly evaluate the reliability of texts or draw sophisticated inferences. Adults at Level 3 and above were considered fully literate. They’re able to evaluate sources, as well as infer sophisticated meaning and complex ideas from written sources.” 33% of adults are Level 3 readers and 13% are Level 4 and 5. While this study wanted to pinpoint how much money this is estimated to be costing the economy — $2.2 trillion a year— literacy matters to me, and should matter to you, because the future depends on it. People are having passionate opinions and debates on things without knowing what the fuck they are talking about— and voting— or not voting. Along with illiteracy impacting health and finances, people are illiterate about civics. In studies finding an overall decline, “only 51% of Americans were able to name all three branches of government and 52% of Americans can’t name a Supreme Court Justice.” That means the people who can name what the branches do is even less than half.  

In the past, political regimes and religious institutions needed to burn books to prevent people from reading new ideas and challenging the prevailing order. Book burnings have happened since the 7th century BCE in numerous cultures, from the Jews, to the Chinese, to Christians, secular societies in Europe, and infamously, during the Nazi regime. During the American enslavement of black people, reading was banned to keep the enslaved docile, ignorant, and hopeless. That was one of my biggest gripes about Kanye West announcing that he doesn’t read— because illiteracy was used as a weapon before and after slavery, which by the way, I’ll always remind you, he said was a choice. Enslaved people risked their limbs and lives to learn and be taught how to read. Their descendants started schools and went door to door teaching people how to read and providing books. Being literate was something to be proud of because it was often a harshly won privilege. Books were THE primary source of imagination and dissent. But in modern history, chipping away at the desire to read, the love of reading, is a little easier for the powers that be. We are often surrounded by books— on library shelves, on 99 cent shelves at thrift stores, on booktok, at Barnes and Noble, at black owned book stores,— and yet, that 54% rears it’s ugly head because we are surrounded by other factors as well..

First, some people are dyslexic or have a disability that makes reading difficult. Mental illness and chronic pain can impact reading levels, which is why universal healthcare continues to be necessary. Second, people have to work and they have lives. I understand. Reading takes up a lot of time— and part of capitalism’s function in keeping workers beleaguered and out of touch with real world issues is by keeping them busy. If studying history was not my full-time job, it would be nearly impossible for me to read after working at another job. We need a rise in minimum wage, affordable housing, and four day work weeks and/or shorter work hours— Americans need leisure time. Next, library shutdowns, which have long been caused by austere public services budgets, are now happening in towns that are trying to ban Black-American texts, race critical texts, and LGBTQ books by any means necessary.

While 54% of Americans read below a 6th grade level, 54% of the population are registered borrowers at libraries, which are more expensive to run than ever before. So threats and actual shutdowns serve the double blow of not only making books and internet services out of reach to poor people, but removing a free space for youth to go without hassle. I am thankful that I had access to amazing libraries in Charlotte, NC, where I could check out dozens of books at a time and get on the internet. Next, American schools are underfunded and understaffed— and generations of illiteracy are happening in places that have high minority populations— Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, California, and Louisiana Im looking at you. Also, schools don’t always provide stories that represent the students, making reading less enjoyable. Having  representation in books can be as important as having a parent who loves reading, and quality teachers who foster a love of reading. Shoutout to my mom for reading to me, and for my nana to taking me to books a million regularly to cash out on whatever I wanted. 

But, I wonder if I would have taken to reading if I grew up the way a lot of kids do now— with free online content endlessly force fed to you through an exploitative algorithm. Math and reading scores dropped significantly among American students during the past three years of the pandemic, while social media usage and isolation soared. That’s the other big problem, for youth and adults alike— videos— especially short Tik Tok sized ones— are reigning supreme. Americans spend an average 1300 hours per year on social media— or 3.5 hours a day. On social media, people with low literacy levels have become the primary audience of misinformation memes that are never followed up on with research, and become the basis of their worldview. 

Other time is eaten up by video games—  214 million Americans play at least one hour a week and nearly 10% play over 20 Horus a week. And then there’s TV— Americans average approximately 1,692 hours a year or 4.6 hours a day. This is great for business, because it is easier for companies to sell you products, and for conglomerate media to support the state in videos, tv shows, and movies, than it is in book, magazines, and newspapers. You can be sold a lifestyle and propaganda in content that is increasingly tailored to your psychological whims— stuff that feels better than reading about tough truths, traumas, and hard solutions. Wrote James Baldwin, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” Which brings me to the final thing causing people not to read— it can be heavy or depressing.

I get it. It can also be boring for people who naturally don’t have these interests. If you want to stick to fun fiction reads, or business, or fashion, that’s better than never reading. You gotta keep your muscles fresh! But if you stick to those kinds of genres or never read at all, how can you engage in passionate current-event, historical, or social debates about things you haven’t informed yourself about? Sure, personal experience counts for something and being a good person can be pretty intuitive, but politics and global issues aren’t a flat one dimensional Disney movie of pure good versus pure evil. There are grey areas that demand study past headlines and personal feelings. How can you argue with experts and factual evidence as if your opinion holds the same weight? How are self-help books being used as an intellectual foundation? The 48 Laws of Power, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and The Art of War do not make you an expert on drug policy, mass incarceration, and systemic poverty— and yes, I’ve read those books!  Joe Rogan and No Jumper podcasts don’t make you an expert on shit, and neither do daily Vaush or Hasan streams. Why are you looking at the quote tweets on a viral post, forming an opinion from what seems to be the prevailing sentiment, and then writing your own version in the hopes of going viral? This is in addition to people who cannot read simple social media posts and end up making arguments out of nothing. Have you noticed in online spaces that a lack of comprehension causes hostile misunderstandings and aggression? 

My YouTube comments are proof of this everyday. Just last week some guy who tried to refute the exploitative realities of American capitalism told me that his latest reads included Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington, The Mamba Mentality by Kobe Bryant, and Republic by Plato. If his reading list was not merely made up of whatever looked appealing on a “So You Love Thomas Sowell” infographic, it included nothing about modern history or politics. How many people are walking around with a politic and historical perspective that is limited to the most privileged and/or antiquated viewpoints? I readily admit that everything new is not good— but that’s the importance of reading a lot. Any old idea that is actually good can successfully stand up to new ideological challenges— and vice versa. Reading new stuff on old topics keeps you fresh. And this is why I always link readings to my videos, because I hope people go deeper and don’t just rely on me— or any other video essayist.  From that same shoddy list, the commenter listed The Autobiography of Malcolm X— who I’ll quote, fittingly. While in prison, he taught himself literacy by copying the dictionary page by page. He wrote, “ Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. . . . I never had been so truly free in my life.” 

To be clear, there is no principled or long lasting revolution happening without more literacy and informed thinking. In addition to reading more, people must be able to discern what is fact, what is opinion, and how to place all kinds of facts and opinions into a broader context. We need to make the knowledge in books more accessible, to bridge the gap for people can’t or don’t read often. Not every book needs to be long as fuck, and endless academic jargon is played. This video is not to call anybody out, just to explain the problem we are facing in the internet age. The silver lining is that while just 46% of the population reads above the 6th grade level, book buying has gone up. Per FastCompany, “Print sales reportedly rose 8% in 2020, one of the biggest spikes in decades, and rose again in 2021; that softened last year, but sales remain above 2019 levels.”  However, I see this massive illiteracy problem getting worse, I’m not gonna hold you. I’ll keep distilling academic text into videos, and in the process, charting my own historical research for people who don’t have the time or desire to read. I love what I do!  But from a big picture perspective, literacy rates will continue to be impacted by the factors I listed, and compounded by new technological advances, culture wars, and a declining attention span. When mixed with people’s propensity to remember the first piece of information they hear about a topic even if its wrong, the fast paced reality of news in a global world, and the way people misremember or forget recent events entirely, I think we’re more than a little fucked. You remember how I said deep fake/artificial intelligence scares me? It’s looking real dystopian around here. In the coming months I’d like to dive into the ways we consume media, particularly social media, reality tv, and celebrity culture. In the meantime, tell me the last book you’ve read or the next book you plan to read!