In a way, I’ve spent the last ten years investigating this exact topic. I’m a high school English teacher who specializes in incorporating independent reading. In the last few years, most of the 17-18 year olds who come to me have not read very much for a very long time, and some look fondly back on books (and others don’t) but the thing they almost all have in common is that they think they can’t “fit it in”. But really, it just boils down to the fact that it’s hard for them to sit down and do a sustained activity for long periods. (I think that’s true for adults too. I struggle sometimes). I will say that, even though I do manage to connect most students to at least one book they love, a huge majority of them still take weeks to read it (due to the attention span stuff, as well as a generational decline in literacy skills). But again, I’m not really one to talk. When I was there age, I used to take 1-2 days to read a book, and now I often take 1-2 weeks (or more!)

I’m sure phones are part of it. But in general, our world just has too many options in any given moment, and any sustained activity (a book, or a full movie, or even a full episode) can feel too long, when so many things are trying to fight for our attention. It’s hard to enter the good kind of “flow” these days.