"Every January, thousands of readers log on to Goodreads, Instagram or TikTok and make the same declaration: this is the year I read 50 books. Or 75. Or 100. Screenshots of spreadsheets circulate, templates for tracking pages and percentages are downloaded, friends publicly pledge to do better than they did last year."
"As the UK launches its National Year of Reading, a steady drumbeat of commentary has framed the decline of book culture as a civilisational crisis. Columnists have painted lurid pictures of a post-literate society, in which the shrinking cultural centrality of books represents a slow unravelling of the habits that once underpinned modern public life. In this context, reading targets promise discipline and a sense of progress."
Many readers set annual reading targets on platforms such as Goodreads, Instagram and TikTok, sharing screenshots, templates and public pledges. UK adult pleasure reading has fallen to around 50% in 2024 from 58% in 2015, prompting a National Year of Reading and commentary warning of cultural decline. Reading targets promise discipline and measurable progress, but tracking and public performance can reshape a solitary pleasure into a metricized, competitive activity. The impulse to quantify leisure reflects wider trends in gamifying daily life. Some participants find online book culture alienating and unsustainably pressure-inducing, producing guilt when targets are unmet.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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