The arrival of summer is often marked by relaxing on a terrace with a book in hand. This summer pastime is enjoyed by more than a third of French people [1]. It is a unique moment when the mind can escape, let go and give free rein to the imagination. However, this practice is losing momentum in the face of screens and social media. This decline is altering our social interactions. Education is crucial to ensuring that reading remains a vehicle for transmission.
Although the decline is silent, it is nonetheless profound: only 56% of French people spontaneously describe themselves as regular readers, a drop of 5 points compared to 2023[2]. This phenomenon affects all social classes (men, women, higher and lower socio-professional categories) and all age groups, with the exception of seniors. You only have to take public transport, where it used to be so easy, even natural, to take out a book or leaf through a newspaper or magazine, to see the difference. Every day, I look around me on the metro for fellow readers. But people’s eyes are glued to their screens: TV series, games and videos are a better way to kill time.
Knowing how to reclaim time
It’s true that reading requires time, attention and mental solitude: an effort that is increasingly undervalued in our era. But if reading is in decline, particularly among public transport passengers, it is not because of a lack of time. Their attention is now captured by another form of content, short and ephemeral, which is received passively and leaves less room for reflection and imagination. Digital players are working to reinforce our digital reflexes. This habit is already ingrained in younger generations. Between the ages of 7 and 19, they spend on average 10 times more time in front of a screen than in front of a book. The time spent turning pages is measured in minutes (19), while the time spent in front of screens is 3 hours and 11 minutes![3] Has “instant entertainment”, consumed passively, won out over the effort of concentration?
Yet we all know that reading means slowing down, creating a personal imagination, escaping from everyday life, and even engaging in a form of introspection. In a society marked by constant stimulation, speed, immediacy, and information overload, reading encourages us to take a break that is beneficial for our minds and to disconnect, a virtue touted by experts.
Reading to create connections
There is another key benefit to reading: it brings people and generations together. Who hasn’t shared a book with a friend, colleague, loved one or neighbour and then discussed their feelings, impressions or thoughts? I remember leaving a book on the underground one evening with my business card as a bookmark. The person who found it kindly contacted me to return it. We spent three hours discussing the book, which she had also read… and which I recommend if you like biographies: “Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”.
The decline in reading is therefore weakening social interactions. Conversely, public transport, waiting rooms and beaches are becoming the scene of collective isolation. Whereas reading used to create bonds with temporary neighbours, with a smile exchanged between two readers intrigued by the title of a book, now our eyes are glued to our screens, isolating us from each other. The silence that reigns is no longer one of concentration, but of distance.
In addition to the weakening of the quality of our interactions, there is a loss of taste for rhetoric: losing the taste for reading also impoverishes our vocabulary. Fewer words mean fewer nuances, and therefore less material to exchange. For younger people, it also means greater difficulty in structuring their thoughts when telling a story. How can we expect young people to develop a taste for reading if we do not fulfil our role in passing it on? Gradually abandoning this practice means abandoning a vehicle for transmission, equal opportunities, intellectual stimulation and personal fulfilment that is essential to their personal development.
I am well aware that humans have shown that they can adapt and change their habits: reading paper books has been replaced by reading on e-readers. And popular Instagram accounts such as Parenthèses élémentaires and Athena Sol invite us, via a new medium, to rediscover the pleasure of words and reading.
Should we accept that reading may gradually disappear from our daily lives? This is a prospect that should concern us French people, as the cradle of literature and the Enlightenment, as we cannot measure what our humanity would be tomorrow if this were to happen.
I welcome initiatives such as the ‘national quarter of an hour of reading’ and ‘This summer, I’m reading’, promoted by ministers Élisabeth Borne and Rachida Dati, which aim to encourage young people to discover the world, stimulate their intellect, cultivate their imagination and, above all, support their personal development through reading. But the challenge is also to reconcile parents with reading in order to inspire their children. Setting an example remains one of the best ways to pass on knowledge.
By Caroline Pierron
[1] Ipsos: https://www.ipsos.com/fr-fr/35-des-francais-lisent-davantage-durant-leurs-vacances-dete
[2] Barometer of the National Book Centre: https://www.livreshebdo.fr/sites/default/files/2025-04/Barome%CC%80tre%20Les%20Franc%CC%A7ais%20et%20la%20lecture%202025-03-28%20Rapport%20complet.pdf
[3] Ipsos/Centre National du Livre study: https://centrenationaldulivre.fr/donnees-cles/les-jeunes-francais-et-la-lecture-en-2024
