A study of hundreds of bestsellers from recent years reveals that the sentences of the most popular books have shrunk by almost a third since the 1930s. What was once a paragraph is today a sentence. What was once a phrase is today a tweet. And the effects, according to several researchers and as it could not be otherwise, extend far beyond the literature.
Shorter sentences. If you leaf through a hit from the 1930s, it is normal to find sentences of twenty words, sometimes more, with subordinate clauses, with clauses, with ideas that branch out. According to an analysis by The Economist elaborated on hundreds of New York Times bestsellersthe average sentence length of the most popular books has fallen by almost a third since that decade. ‘Harper’s Magazine’ estimates the average per sentence of a bestseller of that time at 22 words; Today it’s around 12.
The article gives an example among many others: ‘Modern Painters’ by John Ruskin, number one in sales in its day: its first sentence is a whopping 153 words. Let’s remind Gen-Z that I couldn’t start ‘Wuthering Heights’‘ because of the subtlety of its grammar.
Fewer readers. The shortening of sentences occurs while reading declines in almost all indicators. A study from the University of Florida and University College London Based on the activity diaries of more than 236,000 Americans over two decades, it quantifies the decline: the share of adults who read for pleasure daily fell from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023, a reduction of more than 40%. A “sustained and constant” decline of around 3% annually. In United Kingdom the data points in the same direction: 40% of Britons did not read a single book in 2024. The average Briton read three in the entire year.
What is striking about the American study is that polarization is also advancing. Those who continue reading spend a little more time than before, 83 to 97 minutes on average per day. The phenomenon is not that everyone reads a little less, but that a minority reads a lot more while the majority has stopped reading completely.
Mobile phone as the usual suspect. The most immediate explanation points to smartphones. It is not incorrect, but it is insufficient. ‘The Economist’ recalls that a Benedictine monk from the 4th century already described in his texts how the afternoon sun, the heaviness of lunch and the drowsiness of siesta time made it impossible to keep the book open. The problem of reading concentration predates algorithms and dopamine. What has changed in the modern age is the willingness to read.
The crux of the matter. Professor Jonathan Bate, Professor of English Literature at Oxford, warns that losing the ability to read complex prose can also mean losing the ability to “develop complex ideas that allow you to see nuances and hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time.” The Economist uses data on public discourse to reinforce this thesis. An analysis of almost 250 years of US presidential inaugural addresses, applying the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, shows a clear trajectory: George Washington’s speech scored 28.7 points (graduate level); Donald Trump’s, 9.4 (high school).
Reading is good. science has been documenting for a long time the cognitive benefits of sustained reading: improved reasoning, concentration, empathy and even reduced risk of mortality with just 30 minutes a day. But those benefits require reading, not planning to read. Reading has historically functioned as one of the few mechanisms of social mobility that does not require elite schools or family capital. Just a book and the desire to open it. The problem that the current data raises (from bestsellers with 10-word sentences to 40% of Britons without reading a book in a year) is that this desire does not have much firm territory on which to settle.
Header | Photo of Thought Catalog in Unsplash
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