To be clear this trend starts really early, at least in grade school. I have a second grader and most of his friends have had iPads for years, play video games for hours per day at home. Those kids don’t like to read, and/or are reading slow. Their parents wonder why, and blame the school. You have to make books the most exciting thing in the house for most of the day. And you have to model the behavior of reading; ie read aloud to your kid, and make sure they see you reading for your own pleasure. Go to used-book stores and libraries and keep plenty of books in the house at or near the kids level that they have chosen. Learn to like Dogmab and be ok reading it 1000 times to them before they hit first grade. That’s the only way. Most parents are taking the easy way out with screens, due to deeper issues in the world, like having demanding jobs, dual income households, living far from extended family and not wanting to do the hard work of fighting the societal defaults. But that why most kids don’t want to read, and why we see these stats about teens.

This is a hard truth many wish to deny. An article published every month decrying the poor habits or lack of good habits of children, with a not-so-subtle implication that it is the fault of the children themselves.

It is 100% true that "you have to model the behavior of X" to your kids, otherwise all bets are off and headlines like this should not be surprising in the least.

Reading with kids before bed was our wind down activity. I attribute that and limiting screens to an hour most days to their interest in reading.

> make sure they see you reading for your own pleasure.

Monkey see, monkey do!