BoSacks Speaks Out: If Reading Is in Freefall, Magazines Are the Parachute (and Maybe the Oxygen Mask Too)

Here’s the part nobody wants to say out loud, so I’ll say it with a bullhorn: if daily reading for pleasure drops by 40 percent over two decades, magazine reading doesn’t get a magical exemption. The new iScience study doesn’t mince words. In 2023, only 16 percent of Americans read for pleasure on an average day. Back in 2003, it was 28 percent. That’s not drift, it’s a nosedive. And before anyone starts waving audiobooks like a life raft, yes, they counted those too. The habit is shrinking, even when you include listening. This isn’t a blip. It’s a tectonic shift.

The Decline Isn’t Democratic

The drop hits harder in some places than others. Black Americans, rural communities, lower-income households, and non-college populations are sliding faster. Women still outread men, but both are losing altitude. The only good sentence in the whole report? Reading to children didn’t decline. That’s it. That’s the silver lining. Everything else is a mix of time poverty, digital distraction, and economic erosion. This isn’t just about screens. It’s about access, culture, and the slow disappearance of leisure itself.

The Wrinkle That Matters

Here’s the twist: among the dwindling group who still read, time spent reading actually ticked up. The middle is hollowing out. Casual readers are bailing, while a smaller cohort is doubling down. In politics, polarization is a mess. In media, it’s a business model. Fewer readers, higher intensity. That’s the premium print thesis in one sentence. Or if you prefer a metaphor: the mass market is melting, but the glacier still has a few diamonds.

What This Means for Magazines

Magazines were always habit machines. We taught cadence, promised arrival, and curated attention. Now we’re trying to do all that in a world where attention is auctioned off in 15-second increments. The data doesn’t say people hate reading. It says the default is gone. If you want attention, you have to earn it, with ritual, community, utility, and object quality. Nostalgia is lovely, but it won’t pay the printer.

1. Accept the Split, Then Exploit It

Build for super-readers. Then rebuild the on-ramp for everyone else. Super-readers want depth, authority, and an object worth keeping. Give them stitched spines, paper that whispers luxury, and membership that actually means something. Not a tote bag. A status symbol. Price like you mean it. If your cover price feels like a clearance sticker, you’re not in the premium game.

The casual on-ramp is different. It needs shorter serials, clearer payoffs, and social scaffolding. Reading doesn’t have to be solitary. Book clubs worked. Magazine clubs can too. Add wine and a playlist, and suddenly you’ve got culture.

2. Distribution Is Not Someone Else’s Problem

Access is a barrier. That includes libraries, local retail, and the cost of delivery in rural America. If you publish national titles, partner with state library systems. Offer “press passes” that bundle print issues, digital archives, and reading guides. If you publish regional titles, recruit rural retailers as pickup nodes. Give them a revenue share that matters. Put a QR code on every issue that unlocks audio companions or family reading guides. Then count that engagement like it’s gold. Because it is.

3. Invest Where the Habit Starts

Reading to children didn’t decline. That’s your open door. Commission family-read features that travel across formats, print to phone to audio. Add prompts for time-poor parents. Partner with pediatric clinics and public schools. Supply waiting rooms with curated issues and “read-aloud” one-pagers that fit into a ten-minute visit. You win twice: community impact and future subscribers who recognize your masthead before they hit puberty. And by all means get to know and help https://magliteracy.org/

4. Measure What Matters

The American Time Use Survey has tracked the fall in leisure reading for years. Stop selling reach and impressions. Start selling verified reading time, completion rates, and repeat sessions. If you can’t instrument print, tie it to digital companions. If your ad clients still want “scale,” show them what two minutes of real attention buys in brand lift compared to two seconds of scroll-by. Teens give games ninety minutes a day. They give reading eight. You won’t beat games on volume. Beat them on depth. Baxter Research Group says they can prove Print works, check them out and use them https://brc.com/

The Playbook, Minus the Fantasy

Community beats content. Then content justifies community. Launch reading circles tied to each cover package. Publish discussion questions in print. Host live sessions online. Archive the audio for latecomers. Rotate staff, freelancers, and subject experts. Readers don’t crave infinite content. They crave context, peers, and momentum.

Serials are a feature, not a relic. Commission eight-to-ten-part narrative series with predictable drop days. Package the finale as a collectible print section for members only. The goal is ritual, not a fling. I am a big fan of predictable drop days. I call it appointment journalism. Case in point is my newsletter it goes out precisely at the same time each day.

My readers know exactly when the newsletter will be delivered. You should consider this precision for your readership no matter the frequency.

Libraries and schools are your trifecta. Distribution, marketing, and mission in one. Offer institutional bundles: print copies for branches, site licenses for archives, and classroom kits. Make it turnkey. The study frames reading as public health. Act like a public health partner. Watch doors open. Again, and by all means get to know and help https://magliteracy.org/

Audio is not the enemy. The study counted audiobooks as reading. Good. Use that. Produce companion reads for long features. Allow handoff between formats. Sell sponsors on “read-along” placements that show up in both print and audio. If your prose can’t survive aloud, your prose needs an editor.

Target the gap, not the average. Rural readers and lower-income households are sliding faster. Stand up a “Rural Routing” pilot: discounted bundles, community ambassadors, pop-up events at county fairs. Do the same with HBCU campus partnerships. The decline isn’t just cultural. It’s geographic and economic. Meet it where it lives.

One Hard Truth, One Useful One

The default habit of leisure reading has evaporated. That’s the hard truth. The useful one? Magazines know how to build desire where none exists. We did it at the newsstand for decades. We can do it again. Only this time, the stand is everywhere and the buyer is busy.

The study calls reading a low-barrier, high-impact behavior for well-being. Treat that as both mandate and marketing brief. Sell the habit, not just the issue. Then deliver an issue that earns the habit.

The next ten years won’t reward volume chasers. They’ll reward publishers who design for intensity, community, and continuity. If reading is in freefall, be the parachute. Better yet, be the instructor who gets people back in the plane for another jump. And maybe throw in a snack. Nobody reads well on an empty stomach.