Do Gen Z See Books as a Waste of Time?

We had a discussion about reading among Gen Z and how to encourage them to read more.

Why Does Reading Feel Hard for Gen Z?

Gen Z students seem completely overwhelmed by the thought of reading an entire book. And honestly, you can see the same thing in plenty of people in their 30s too. Even reading 10 pages feels like too much for some of them.

Some people blame social media, instant gratification, addictive video games, and endless short-form content constantly fighting for attention. Others argue that younger generations actually read more than ever before — just not traditional literature.

Maybe this is the first time the “novel” is actually dying. Where did the passion for literature go? Let’s take a look at the grounds.

#1 Internet

The world mourns the loss of literature reading but Gen Z came of age in a time when misinformation on the internet was much lower, making it a much more educational place.

For earlier generations, books were often considered the main gateway to serious knowledge. If you wanted to deeply learn history, science, philosophy, psychology, or even niche hobbies, books were usually the best source available.

Gen Z grew up in a different environment:

• instant access to explanations
• Wikipedia
• YouTube educators
• forums and communities
• podcasts
• online courses
• AI tools
• searchable information everywhere

So books lost their monopoly on “deep knowledge.” So reading itself is not dying. Long-form, slow, linear reading might be.

#2 Emotional Experience

And literature specifically has another problem: many young people no longer see novels as the fastest or richest emotional experience. Games, series, YouTube essays, anime, podcasts, and social media now compete for the same emotional space that novels once dominated.

Constant switching between short content trains the brain to expect novelty every few seconds. Books require patience, imagination, internal visualization, delayed payoff. That becomes harder when the brain adapts to constant stimulation.

#3 Associations with Work

For many Gen Z students, books stopped feeling like discovery and started feeling like:

• assignments
• grades
• analysis
• pressure
• forced interpretation

A lot of people leave school thinking literature is exhausting instead of meaningful. That shift matters a lot psychologically. Autonomy (choosing something yourself) is a huge part of enjoyment. Once reading is tied to grades, deadlines, correctness, “right answers”. People stop reading freely. Instead of exploring, they start trying to avoid mistakes.

#4 Visual Media Got Extremely Good

Movies, games, TV series, documentaries, and even YouTube storytelling improved massively. A modern game like Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Last of Us can deliver emotional narratives comparable to novels for many people. For younger generations, “storytelling” no longer automatically means books.

#5 Mental Exhaustion

A lot of people are simply cognitively overloaded:

• notifications
• work stress
• economic anxiety
• constant news
• social comparison online

Reading requires mental energy many people feel they no longer have after a full day online.

How Do We Fix This?

Should we fix it? Partly yes. But not by pretending the internet is evil. The concern is: “Can people still sustain deep attention and think beyond short bursts?”

Deep reading trains: concentration, memory, empathy, abstract thinking, patience, complex reasoning. Those skills matter even outside literature. But we also shouldn’t romanticize the past too much. Earlier generations were not universally intellectual book lovers. Many people barely read them too.

The healthier goal is probably: preserving deep focus, encouraging long-form thinking, helping people enjoy reading voluntarily, adapting literature to modern formats.

You don’t encourage people to read more through shame or by saying “books are important because they just are.” That approach doesn’t really work for a generation that grew up in a constant competition for attention. Instead, what works is this:

• Give an emotional hook. People don’t read for “usefulness” — they read for curiosity, tension, atmosphere, drama. Instead of: “This is classic literature.” Say: “This book was so influential that it got banned.” “After this book, people were genuinely afraid of the ocean.” “It’s about a person slowly losing their mind.” You’re selling the experience, not the book.
• Don’t start with massive novels. A lot of people immediately get given something like War and Peace and quit before they even begin. Short books and topics the person is already interested in are better options. Reading also requires “stamina training.”
• Remove elitism. Literature is often presented like a test of intelligence.
• Make books social. People today are strongly motivated by communities, memes, TikTok, discussions, and fandom culture. That’s why BookTok became so big. When books become part of culture and emotional conversation, reading becomes more attractive.
• Restore the feeling of immersion. The real competitor to books today isn’t the internet. It’s fragmented attention. People need to relearn silence, focus, atmosphere, slow immersion into another world. Often after 30–50 pages, people suddenly realize: “Oh… this is why people love reading.” Because the brain needs time to adjust.