Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.

Learn more at RWJF.org.

Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

In the words of Rupal, Reading is what?

Fundamental.

But are we losing our grasp on it?

Our ability to read books, or our lack thereof, has been in the zeitgeist lately.

There's been some viral reporting on college kids struggling to finish longer texts.

I've seen multiple posts on X where adults

are bemoaning their waning attention spans and asking for advice on how to read books again.

I mean, you know we're cooked when Oxford's 2024 word of the year was brain rot. I'll say for myself,

I've been there. I love to read, but I feel like I've really

had to work to be able to enjoy books like I used to. And the data says the same thing. Polls from

Gallup and the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Americans are spending less time reading than

ever. This week, I'm revisiting some of my favorite conversations about the

value our culture places on knowledge, reading, and education, or the lack thereof. On Monday,

we talked about the viral outrage against professors and other thinkers online. Today, I'm asking,

is reading still fundamental? The desire to information for it. That

innate code in us has essentially been captured. That's Elaine Castilio, author of the book,

How to Read Now. Hello, thank you for having this. I'm also joined by Abdullah Shihipar,

research associate at the People, Place, and Health Collective at Brown

...