Huh, interesting. At the public library I get tonnes of teens in looking for recommendations for a (short) book they have to read for school. My first questions is always "What was the last book you enjoyed?" (to judge reading level and start a conversation about what genre of book to head for) and I'd say it is close to 100% of the time that they can't name one. If I prod, sometimes they name a book they read in class a couple of years back. Maybe the teens that do read aren't looking for book suggestions from librarians, but it sure is depressing to me how many teens do not read at all. And don't get me started on the guy that told me he was going to be a psychiatrist and was PROUD of the fact that he had never read a book and never would - we was just gonna sail though university on his intellect alone because he already knew it all....

And don't get me started on the guy that told me he was going to be a psychiatrist and was PROUD of the fact that he had never read a book and never would - we was just gonna sail though university on his intellect alone because he already knew it all....

He's got some brutal learning experiences ahead of him.

Maybe the teens that do read aren't looking for book suggestions from librarians,

Oh, yeah. That would have been me. There's no way I would have been asking librarians for book suggestions at that age.

I used to read apophenia all the time back in the day. I think it never made the transition from bookmark to feed reader. Thanks seanyboy!

In regards to high schooler's reading - MuddDude didn't voluntarily read a book between the ages of 12 and 22. He reads now but at a much slower pace than I do. He also doesn't have the skills to read a novel and do something else at the same time like I can - he's got to be completely focused like on a plane or while exercising.

I'm not convinced that "kids today" like reading any less than kids in the past - it's just that there are so many more entertainment and information options now than even when my parents were kids.

Datapoint: My kid is a huge reader, always has been, he has taken after his family, we are all avid readers. He and I have been sharing book recommendations for years. I would say he is a rather precocious reader for his age.
However, if queried by nearly anyone at this age, he would deny any knowledge that books or periodicals exist. He would stare at you blankly and mutter something stupid. Acknowledging a serious reading habit would out him as a nerd, and he is not yet a person willing to let his geek flag fly. That makes me sad.
Additionally, he also sucks bigtime at figuring out what websites to trust. The old axiom of "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is" still hasn't sunk in with the boy.

You rang?

To echo saucysault, a few years ago, a pre-med student showed up in my office complaining that there were no sources on the topic I assigned. As he explained his problem one of my other students, Chris, happened to be walking by. (Due to sexual harassment policy, office doors should be kept open during meeting with students UNLESS the student specifically requests the door be closed.) Chris poked his head into my office and said, "Oh the books on that topic are on the sixth floor of the library. Just take a right off-" At this point my sourceless student cut him off by saying, with NO embarrassment "I don't DO books." For the rest of the semester, he openly asserted that he would make it all the way through med school without using books. And no, he wasn't joking.

I used to think that reading correlated with intelligence. I read a lot as a kid. Now I think it just correlates with better writing. My husband is smarter than me in many ways, and I've only seen him read four books in the 5 years we've been together (2 of them were audiobooks). (Not counting software manuals.)