Over the past two decades, children and young people’s reading lives have been influenced by the rapid expansion of digital technology.
This report brings together evidence from our Annual Literacy Survey, drawing on data collected since 2005 but with a particular focus on trends from 2017 to 2025, when we first asked children and young people to report separately on their print and digital reading. It examines what children and young people read in print and on screen in their free time and how these patterns vary by age, gender, socio-economic background and reading enjoyment level.
Rather than presenting print and digital formats as opposing practices, the findings show that they co‑exist in complex ways, highlighted in comments such as, “I enjoy reading multiple books at a time, I listen to Audibles, read ebooks and physical books, and also read The Week Junior magazine.”
Key findings
- Print reading continues to dominate, particularly for fiction, but reading digitally is firmly embedded in many children and young people’s everyday lives. While levels of print reading have declined markedly since 2017, reading digitally has remained more stable.
- For example, in 2017, 3 in 5 (59.5%) of 8 to 18s read fiction in print, decreasing to 1 in 2 (49.3%) in 2025. By contrast, 1 in 5 read fiction digitally both in 2017 (19.9%) and 2025 (22.2%).
- Children and young people who enjoy reading most are more likely to read in print or across both print and digital formats, while reading digitally plays a particularly important role for less-engaged readers, boys and children from lower-income backgrounds.
- Reading of digital-only materials (e.g. messages, websites and social media) has fallen sharply since 2023, alongside wider shifts towards more visual and AI-mediated content.
While digital devices are often considered a threat to reading, our findings show that for many children and young people, digital formats can act as a gateway into reading aligned with their interests, devices and daily media habits. Failing to recognise this risks undervaluing an essential part of the reading lives of children who already feel least connected to books. At the same time, print remains central to most reading experiences, and strong print reading underpins effective reading across formats.
The challenge is to create inclusive reading cultures that recognise the reality of children’s reading lives and value diverse routes into reading, while ensuring all children have opportunities to build the deeper, sustained reading practices that benefit them most, regardless of format.
The report findings support the principles of the National Year of Reading, validating children and young people's contemporary experiences of reading and encouraging them to dive into their passion through reading in whatever way works for them.