LitNation: Simple Steps to Lead America’s Youth Back to Literature – Before It’s Too Late

To call the current literacy situation with teenagers a crisis would be an understatement. A crisis implies a critical event, but it also implies that it is recognized and that necessary steps are in place to ensure it is addressed. The unfolding literacy crisis sweeping across America isn’t being addressed.

The problem with literacy and our youth is the blatant lack of recognition (or acceptance) for the depth of the underlying issue, how prevalent it is throughout our culture, the impact that it’s having mentally and physically on our young adults and teenagers, and what should be done to resolve it. We move along blindly, periodically pointing fingers at the education system, government programs, the influence of technology, and overall degradation of social skills, but how do we get to the core of the issue, and what can we do to change the course of direction?

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Young minds are vulnerable to emotional content, and the developers behind the algorithms know this. Algorithms intentionally narrow their worldview by funneling emotional content based on search or viewing behavior. Watch a race-based fight in a parking lot? They’ll receive streams of similar types of related content. The implication is that this behavior is prevalent across society, and it becomes normalized. Teenagers spend hours daily watching 10-second clips of different variations of the same negative, mind-altering content, every day. Are we surprised by the impact on their individual development and society at the macro level?

Over time, this can normalize fringe and extreme behavior, and this is among the worst ramifications of algorithmic mental conditioning. Absurdness becomes accepted as normal if a teenager is led to believe many others are viewing and participating in the same behavior. This leads to technology-induced herd mentality. Everyone is a… (insert today’s label!). Everyone vapes! Everyone does dangerous stunts and acts! It’s not that everyone is truly any of those things; it’s that the viewer is only receiving a narrowly and purposefully controlled slice of reality.

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Books are different.Reading and literature affect the brain differently. Books are based on character development, problem solving, focus and attention, historical context, vocabulary, and most importantly, creativity and imagination.

Reading is the antithesis of what kids are getting from staring at 10-second clips on a device for hours every day. Reading is ingrained in mental development because processing language and written words is programmed into our DNA. A comprehensive study found that children who are read to at an early age recognize hundreds of thousands more words by kindergarten, versus a child who has not been read to. This demonstrates how much the brains of babies and children absorb reading and literary formats.

This is a problem we can solve, and it’s one that we have to solve.We have a clearer understanding of the problem, but how do we address it? Like most social problems, the solution starts in the home. Parental instincts usually are keen to identify imbalances within the family structure and threats to their children. Social media algorithms should be viewed at least partially as threats – to a child’s education, worldview, and mental health. If your child spends hours every day on their device looking at social media, how much is too much?

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LitNation – Step 1: From our research, the best thing a parent can do within the household is require time blocking. Have your child put down their device and pick up a book. You can set a limit, e.g., at night from 7-7:30 p.m. is “read time.” It can be 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour. If they are resistant, you can start with a small limit.

When I was researching for my book Run Your Body Like a Business, I spent many months at a Buddhist temple in Thailand. When foreigners come to a Buddhist retreat, they can’t imagine sitting for hours doing meditation. The monks’ solution? A very simple one: they give each foreigner a stopwatch to wear around their neck. They tell foreigners to start with 10 minutes, then evolve to 20, 30, etc. Before long, they are meditating for hours. The most important thing is getting started by changing bad habits into good habits.

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LitNation – Step 3: The last important point is to provide exceptional content. If a young reader gets enthralled with a book, they are much more likely to want to continue reading. As an author, I have written a book series for young adults that is a phenomenal action/adventure story that they will love. Along with this, you can feel comfortable that the book has no sexually explicit content and a strong focus on traditional values, such as family, faith, and our military. It requires critical thinking and has characters that are fun, interesting, and exciting to read about. But the point is to locate books that interest your reader. Try different subjects and different authors until they find their rhythm and start to make reading part of their everyday lives.

(*) Full article: https://pjmedia.com/jay-foard/2026/08/07/litnation-simple-steps-to-lead-americas-youth-back-to-literature-before-its-too-late-n4955909