Smart people are still literate, but deep reading is collapsing

The real problem in business may no longer be whether people can read, but whether they are still willing to read deeply.

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I send proposals to clients that are detailed, thoughtful and carefully structured. I try to include the context, the rationale, the scope, the options and the practical implications. Yet more and more, I get the sense that once people scroll past the first page, they stop reading. This is not because they are unintelligent. Many are highly educated, articulate and professionally successful. But there is a growing difference between being able to read and being willing to engage in sustained reading.

That difference matters. It affects how leaders process information, how organisations make decisions and how seriously people are willing to wrestle with nuance. What I am observing in business life increasingly looks like part of a bigger cultural shift: people remain technically literate, but deep reading is becoming rarer.

CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND

Recent evidence suggests this concern is not imaginary. A 2025 iScience study using two decades of American Time Use Survey data found a marked long-term decline in reading for pleasure, with the proportion of adults reading for pleasure on a typical day falling from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023. That is not a small dip. It points to a major shift in how people spend their attention.

The pattern begins much earlier in life. The National Literacy Trust reported in 2024 that only 34.6% of children and young people aged 8 to 18 in the UK said they enjoyed reading in their free time, the lowest level since the survey began in 2005. In other words, many of tomorrow’s professionals are growing up in an environment where reading for pleasure is already weak.

At the same time, the medium through which people read also seems to matter. A 2024 meta-analysis in Discover Education found that while overall comprehension differences between paper and digital reading are not always dramatic, longer and more complex texts often still favour print, especially where time pressure is involved. That fits everyday experience. Screens encourage speed, interruption and skimming. Books and printed pages more often encourage patience and immersion.

INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS

This is where the business problem begins. Many professionals can still read, but fewer seem willing to sustain attention through long, layered arguments. The issue is not pure illiteracy. It is something closer to aliteracy: the ability to read without the habit or appetite for doing it deeply. Rose Horowitch’s 2024 Atlantic article on elite college students who struggle to finish books captured this sharply. Her reporting suggested that many students are not incapable of reading, but are increasingly unaccustomed to long-form engagement and more comfortable with excerpts, summaries and screens.

For business leaders, this matters more than it may first appear. Complex organisations still depend on long-form communication. Strategy documents, investment proposals, board papers, policy submissions, audit reports and transformation plans cannot always be reduced to a paragraph and a chart. If leaders increasingly skim rather than read, the cost is not only misunderstanding. It is shallow judgment, more avoidable meetings, repeated clarifications and weaker decisions.

There is also a digital-habit issue here. Recent research has linked heavier short-form social media consumption to weaker sustained attention and more difficulty with long-form tasks. A 2025 paper in the Open Journal of Social Sciences found that heavy users of highly dynamic platforms showed reduced sustained attention and lower ability to focus on long-form reading tasks. That does not mean technology is the enemy, but it does suggest that the way we consume information is reshaping the way we think.

IMPLICATIONS

Business leaders should not dismiss this as a cultural side issue. Deep reading is a capability. It supports judgment, synthesis, empathy and strategic thought. If organisations want better decisions, they may need to think more seriously about how they communicate and how they protect attention.

That may mean redesigning proposals and reports so they respect modern reading behaviour without surrendering substance. Executive summaries matter. Clear structure matters. But so does rebuilding a culture where serious reading is still expected. In a world full of skimming, the ability to read deeply may become a competitive advantage.

CLOSING TAKEAWAY

People have not suddenly become unintelligent. Nor have educated professionals lost the technical ability to read. But there is mounting evidence that many are losing the habit of sustained reading and the patience required for complex text. In business, that should concern us. The future will demand more judgment, not less, especially in an age of AI, overload and compressed attention. If fewer people are willing to read beyond the first page, then organisations are not just facing a communication problem. They may be facing a thinking problem. And that is a much bigger risk.

Author Bio: Johan Steyn is a prominent AI thought leader, speaker, and author with a deep understanding of artificial intelligence’s impact on business and society. He is passionate about ethical AI development and its role in shaping a better future. Find out more about Johan’s work at https://www.aiforbusiness.net