Get Britain Reading - the new Sunday Times campaign
Another paper rallies around the importance of reading
I started building Storygram Ltd to address a specific problem: children are no longer reading for fun. I was only too aware of the benefits of reading in my life, and felt that children could not afford to miss out on this gift.
Over the past year, I’ve spent time researching and writing about the issue here on Substack. The data is clear enough. Additionally, I’ve become increasingly convinced that reading for pleasure really is a life-altering activity.
Reading has a deep impact on our knowledge, empathy, social mobility, mental health, imagination, and even our very character.
As I began writing about the problem, I began to notice more press coverage, among a growing national interest.
I wondered if this was simply the Frequency Illusion — seeing something you are interested in everywhere, like when you’re considering a car to buy. But no, the importance of reading (and its demise) is being discussed everywhere: The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Telegraph, the Free Press, the Guardian, the Independent… you get the idea. The UK Government even declared 2026 “The National Year of Reading”.
The Sunday Times’ new campaign: Get Britain Reading, is just the latest example.
Social media posts are now the main place people read
Here’s the depressing headline that came with their release:
The Sunday Times has today launched a campaign to Get Britain Reading as new data shows that people of all ages now read social media posts more often than books.
The stats are shocking. According to the Reading Agency, social media posts are now the top reading format across all age groups.
Subtitles are the next most common format of reading. Subtitles!
It’s clear enough that time spent on screens is time not reading print books - so the question is: Will this campaign move the needle?
Donate, volunteer, pledge
The campaign has three primary goals:
Donate to Bookbanks to put books in the hands of those most in need.
Volunteer to read in schools with Coram Beanstalk.
Pledge to read for pleasure for at least ten minutes a day for six weeks.
These are laudable goals. In particular, I think the Bookbanks initiative is an intelligent and excellent use of the existing Foodbank infrastructure to give low-income children opportunities to own books.
One comment on the campaign page tells a tragic, but possibly common story:
Books and reading were heavily discouraged in my house, to the point of physical abuse, if I was caught “swotting”. Luckily I had access to an excellent town library, very encouraging grandparents and a stubborn streak a mile long.
“It’s time to act”
Children deserve to live in a world where reading a book is normal (at home, or in public).
The Sunday Times campaign isn’t specifically aimed at children, though both the Bookbanks and Coram initiatives are more child-focussed. The Sunday Times pledge is more likely an appeal to adults (though arguably the average Sunday Times reader doesn’t need to pledge to read 10 minutes per day).
Either way, I do hope that campaigns like this can have meaningful impact, just as at Storygram Parents we’ll continue with our goal to help parents motivate their children to read.
Perhaps together we can begin to move the needle back in the right direction.
