Teenagers Are Reading Worse Than 20 Years Ago
Saturday, 2026/09/12169 words3 minutes150 reads
PISA is an international assessment of 15-year-old students. Its 2025 test involved about 760,000 teenagers in 91 countries and economies. It measured reading, mathematics and science. The OECD, which runs PISA, said reading and mathematics reached their lowest average levels on record across OECD countries.
Reuters reported that the reading score on PISA's index fell from 501 in 2012 to 466 in 2025. Students were reading at a level that had previously been expected of students about one year younger. Maths and science results also declined.
The results do not show one simple cause. OECD leaders said more screen time, less reading for pleasure and more hasty reading have gone together with weaker outcomes. Digital distraction is also linked to lower scores, especially when devices are used for leisure at school. These are associations, not proof that any one habit causes a score to fall.
East Asian education systems performed strongly. Participating Chinese jurisdictions, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Chinese Taipei were among the leading systems in all three subjects.
