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You’re not alone says Alex Beattie, senior lecturer in Information Management at Victoria University.
“It’s pretty hard to argue that social media and smart phones are not affecting our attention spans, because we’ve never been so distracted.”
A study done at the University of Texas in 2017 found the mere presence of a smartphone reduces cognitive capacity significantly, and concentration improves when the phone is in another room.
Another, published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2021 , found that social media distractions can easily become a threat to task performance and well-being, with notifications and the fear of missing out (FOMO), eating up cognitive resources.
The buffet of short-form notifications gives a dopamine release which is “alluring, seductive and addictive”.
“And when you get used to those neuro-chemicals mixing around in your brain, reading a book can sometimes feel a bit boring, if you’re not getting those same sensations,” Beattie says.
Are reading rates declining?
Reading for pleasure every day in the United States has declined by more than 40 per cent in the last 20 years, according to a 2025 study from the University of Florida and University College London .
But New Zealand’s 2025 national reading survey showed a slight increase in the numbers of adults who had read a book in the last year – 87 percent, up from 85 percent in 2021.
Sarah Voss, head of the school of arts and media at Victoria University in Wellington, says there’s “absolutely no question” that in a busy, distracted world, reading patterns are changing.
She’s noticed students coming to university having read fewer books.
“We wouldn’t throw [Charles Dickens’] David Copperfield at them in the first week of university in quite the way we might have in the past, but that’s just about acknowledging the way that literature plays a different part in people’s lives now.”
Voss says her students are highly critical and intelligent readers – they’re just reading different texts.
She says novels, like any art form, evolve over time and points to an author like Patricia Lockwood, who incorporated Twitter-like fragments throughout her book Nobody is Talking About This .
“Those changes, modifications and experimentations with prose and literature have always occurred – and we’re just in another form of that.”
Nobody is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021.
Supplied / Penguin Random House NZ
How do I regain enough focus?
Beattie, who researches people who disconnect from social media, says the first step is to put your phone in a different room when you sit down to read.
Another strategy is to carve out time on a holiday to try reading again.
“Often at the heart of distraction isn’t necessarily the phone, but what’s driving our use of the phone – which is being busy, being stressed at work, our social lives being busy.”
Jenna Todd from Auckland’s Time Out bookstore.
Hollie Wilkinson
Jenna Todd, manager at Time Out bookstore in Mt Eden, says people should seek out their local booksellers if they’re struggling.
Booksellers can sense what kind of reader their customer is, without knowing them personally, she says.
If you’re browsing by yourself, look for punchy chapters that end on cliff-hangers, or revealing autobiographies.
“One of those really juicy, revealing gossipy ones – you just literally can’t put it down and finish it in a day, that’s just such an ideal summer read for me.”
What are some of the best books to get me out of the rut?
Heart the Lover by Lily King.
Supplied / Canongate
Todd says Heart the Lover , by Lily King, is a “big feelings book”, which has echoes of young adult novelist John Green, or of the television series How I Met Your Mother .
The college love triangle between a young women and two best friends hooks the reader in, Todd says.
“You don’t know where it’s going to go.”
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy.
Supplied / Penguin Random House NZ
Todd also recommends the Australian-set Wild Dark Shore , by Charlotte McConaghy, which has been a hit in book clubs.
The book opens with a woman washing up on a remote fictional island off Australia – and Todd says the twist in every chapter propels the narrative forward.
“It’s got a science-eco story, but it’s also a thriller, it’s a love story…it’s a great read.”
Flesh by David Szalay won the 2025 Booker Prize.
Supplied
Last year’s Man Booker Prize Winner, Flesh by David Szalay is utterly “compelling” – due to its spare and inventive style.
“People either really don’t like it, or really really like it – which I think makes for the perfect book club book, because there’s a lot to talk about with others, and the compulsion means you can’t put it down whether you’re liking it or not.”
What about joining a book club?
Discussing books with others helps keep the reading momentum going, Todd says.
That’s something Adam Grener, senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, agrees with.
He’s started a long novel club over summer – which tackled George Eliot’s Middlemarch in 2024 – and the behemoth War and Peace , which can be up to 1200 pages, over three months.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
RNZ / Mark Papalii
Grener says the regular meet-ups energises members.
“I think that’s one of the things that really galvanises the group – is this sense that there’s a lot of other people – that are interested in spending some of their time, working together to work through a long novel.”
Book club member Frankie Goodenough, 25, says reading a long novel is almost like a sort-of training, tough at first, but satisfying.
“You get into a sort of focus state that you don’t really get into otherwise.”
Githara Gunawardena and Frankie Goodenough (right).
RNZ / Mark Papalii
Goodenough insists reading isn’t dying, there’s just so much more competing for our attention.
“Lately I’ve been noticing more and more, especially young people, reading on the train. I think there were a few years where I never saw anyone reading in public, and I actually think it’s coming back, a little bit, if it ever was not in.”
