At family gatherings, someone always sighs and says the new generation does not read anymore. Heads nod, someone mentions phones, and the tea arrives.
I want to pause on that sigh, because it is only half true, and the wrong half is unfair to young people.
Young people have not stopped loving stories. They follow series late into the night, know every corner of their favourite game worlds, and read webtoons and fan fiction written by strangers their own age. What has weakened is something narrower: the habit of sitting quietly with a long book. That deserves understanding, not scolding.
The numbers elsewhere are sobering. In the UK, only about one in three young people said they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2025. In the United States, a large study found reading for pleasure fell by more than 40% in twenty years. I have not found comparable figures for Bangladesh, so I write as a teacher and a Dhaka resident, from what I see around me. I doubt we are an exception.
So why? Most of the reasons have little to do with a young person's character.
Time comes first. A student may go from school to coaching to a private tutor to homework. By night, the mind wants rest, not three hundred pages. We have quietly scheduled idleness out of childhood.
Then duty. When reading mostly means textbooks and guides with marks attached, books become a chore. We taught them that reading is for exams, then wondered why they do not pick up a novel for pleasure.
Then the screen, and here I want to be fair. A reel costs nothing: no effort, no waiting, a fresh reward every few seconds, and another right behind it. Reading asks for patience before it pays you back. Of course the quick thing wins. Many adults lose this contest too.
But the effect may go deeper than lost time. A 2025 review in Psychological Bulletin, covering 71 studies and nearly 100,000 people, found that heavier short-video use was linked with poorer cognition, with attention and self-control showing the strongest links. The evidence is mostly correlational, so it cannot establish cause and effect. Perhaps restless minds simply scroll more. Still, it fits what many teachers notice: staying with one idea has become harder.
When you read of a dark house at the end of a lane, you build that house yourself, with your own lane and your own dark. A reel hands over the finished picture. Imagination grows by making, not only by receiving. This is a teacher's concern, not a proven finding, and I offer it as one.
Imagination is harder to measure, but I think it is quietly at stake. When you read of a dark house at the end of a lane, you build that house yourself, with your own lane and your own dark. A reel hands over the finished picture. Imagination grows by making, not only by receiving. This is a teacher's concern, not a proven finding, and I offer it as one.
Children also copy what they see. In many homes, the adult on the sofa is scrolling too. And where are the Bangladeshi stories that speak to a sixteen-year-old's life, in their own language, at a price they can afford? A book fair once a year is a festival, not a reading culture.
Is it worth worrying about? Yes, but carefully. Not because the novel is sacred; novels themselves were once accused of corrupting the young. What concerns me is what long reading trains: patience, sustained attention, and the willingness to live inside another mind for a while. These matter in a lecture hall, a workplace and a democracy.
The answer is not shame. Count what young people already read: graphic novels, audiobooks, webtoons, fan fiction. They are doorways. Give back one quiet hour a day, with no marks attached. Ask writers and publishers for stories in a teenager's own voice. Keep reels in their place, not banned but bound, and do it as a household, adults included. And let them see us reading.
The next generation did not walk away from books. Schedules, screens and our own expectations crowded them out. If we want them back, we should offer an invitation rather than a lecture. Tonight, we could put the phone down, pick up a book, and let them see us enjoy it.
Md Rafiqul Islam Tushar is an Architect, writer and educator based in Dhaka.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Business Standard.