Literacy Crisis
One of the most prominent issues in our society at the moment is the decreasing literacy rates that seem to have taken over America. The thing is, there isn’t any one reason why these are going down so much. It could be the lack of education that people are receiving; it could be technology or social media; or it could even be increasing rates of things like dyslexia. These rates could be influenced by a myriad of factors, and in this article we will go a little further into this research.
One major contributor to today's literacy crisis is the distraction of social media. Today's youth don’t take the time to pick up a book and read it if it’s not required for school. A study done by Common Sense Media suggests that the amount of time spent on screens is triple the amount spent reading. The average person spends 141 minutes on social media daily, mindlessly scrolling through thousands of videos in one sitting. These short clips are designed for quick visual stimulation and require no attention span. They provide small bursts of dopamine that reinforce the habit of instant gratification. Social media fully consumes the lives of millions of teens, with many saying that they are addicted and quite literally “cannot live without it.”
This creates a huge problem, since most social media content is brain-rotting videos and unserious topics. Anything that is advertised as helpful or educational is often unreliable. People will often see one video online that seems knowledgeable and suddenly call themselves “educated.” Since this generation chooses technology over reading, many people lack critical thinking skills, and literacy levels have dropped greatly over the past decade. Experts say “this shift is causing us to lose the ability to engage critically and deeply with complex topics, leaving us more prone to surface-level consumption.” Books offer many of these fundamental skills, yet people would rather doomscroll on social media. Reading used to be considered fun, but sadly, today it is seen more as a chore.
Interestingly though, the literacy crisis starts earlier than we think. Approximately 1 in 5 children have dyslexia, and up to 80% of those children do not get diagnosed. Because dyslexia is frequently missed, children struggle and are told to “try harder” and “just read more,” but because nobody realizes that it is dyslexia, a child can quickly fall behind.
Dyslexia is a neurological condition that makes it harder for a person to connect sounds or shapes to letters, regardless of intelligence or effort. This pattern of children having to “decode” words deeply contributes to the literacy crisis we have today. When a child is “decoding” words, reading becomes more difficult and frustrating than fun. They begin to view reading as something they have to do, instead of something they get to do. This typically means they will read a lot less as they grow, which is a large factor contributing to our literacy crisis.
Ultimately, though people are well aware of the current literacy crisis in America, they are prone to focus on teenagers and the younger crowd, and usually fail to mention the fact that the literacy crisis is also very prominent with adults.
There was a study that came out in 2024 that was submitted by the National Literacy Institute that said that 21% of American adults are completely illiterate, meaning they can’t read or write simple sentences. At first glance, this number seems pretty bad. The reality? It’s worse than you could possibly think. We are currently seeing the highest illiteracy rates in 155 years. To put this into perspective, the illiteracy rates in 1870 were 11.5%, and in 1970 they were a mere 0.4%.
The question is where these losses come from. The answer to this question is that they come from welfare, unemployment, and incarceration rates, according to USA Reads. All of these combined made it so that 54% of American adults are at a reading level of that of a sixth-grade level, and 20% are at a fifth-grade level.
Literacy is shaped by countless factors which can range from demographic to even social factors. Whether adults went to a good school as children—or whether they went to school at all—whether they read at home, or pushed themselves to want to learn, language proficiency, parental education, and whether they lived in underserved communities. These factors, among many, are the leading causes that have made adults in the 21st century lack basic writing and reading-comprehension skills. It is important to understand, however, that many of these factors were completely out of their control.
Low literacy levels aren’t just bad for the individuals themselves, however. Literacy has a huge economic impact, and billions of dollars are lost each year due to reduced productivity, more healthcare costs, and especially limited employment opportunities. Although it is rarely something that people focus on, literacy programs have the potential to improve many lives, according to National University. Investing in literacy programs would have the potential to boost GDP and reduce long-term spending and unemployment.
The saddest thing about all of this is that there actually are adult literacy programs; the issue is that access is a significant barrier. Most adults who have low literacy levels aren’t even aware that these programs are available, and because people don’t use these resources, there is a lack of funding, volunteer shortages, and long waiting lists cause some of these programs to shut down. The only hope that people have for closing this gap is expanding outreach programs and support by making them more known and accessible for people.
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