Across the board, Australians are reading less than ever before, with young men reading the least and older women reading the most.
The trend is reinforced from a young age, with parents more likely to read to their daughters than sons.
Australia Reads, a book industry initiative, is calling for a national strategy that reminds people of the fun and comfort that reading can bring.
What happened to Gen X men? That gap is massive, their numbers are nearly as low Gen Z men.
Gen X here. I was such an avid reader until my late 30’s and I have no idea what happened. It was either when I emigrated from my country and maybe I had too much on my plate, or the internet finally taking its toll on my ability to concentrate.
I’ve no substantiation for these guesses but one thing that comes to mind is that boys were more likely to get into computers in the early eras of tech and that time sink meant they were less likely to build the habit of reading. TV is another possibility, Gen X was the first to grow up with TVs being widespread and boys probably spent more time on that.
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Same thing that happened to the generations after x: computer games, consoles. Books were big for me when I was young, but I hardly have time to read now
Also not much of generation X is retired
Gen x here. Techy from 12 years old roughly. My hand writing is atrocious. I read until about 17.