There is a new epidemic brewing in the classrooms. No, it’s not the flu, nor the stomach bug, and not even the common cold. It is a sickness that can’t be spread around like a traditional disease, its one brought upon in early childhood.

This is the illiteracy epidemic.

This problem has been cited all over the world, but most significantly in the United States, and the south has been hit the hardest. It has gotten so bad that only 40% of United States students in high school meet the college readiness benchmark. In fall 2024, the College Board announced that the ACT average score has been at the lowest it’s been for 32 years.

For a long time, schools focused on reading skills. Children, as young as 2 had been introduced to books, and independent reading time to help develop their skills further. Children literacy rates have been climbing ever since the 90s, and so has government funding. In 1990, Congress passed Title V: Family Literacy and Lifelong Learning, an act to end childhood and adulthood illiteracy, and to make every American literate by the year 2000. It has been mostly a success, although the target was not reached by 2000, the action had led to a notable increase in literacy rates in America, with adult literacy rates going from 58.64% in 1990, to 68.21% in 2000.

But ever since the pandemic, there has been a drastic change.

Children have struggled in learning reading, and writing skills. Now, more than ever, children rely on their devices for information.

They trap themselves in an endless scroll-fest on their devices instead of picking up a book to read. In fact, in “2024, 31% of fourth graders and 30% of eighth graders were proficient in reading, compared to around 60% before the pandemic.” But it’s not just the pandemic causing this problem. Yes, the lack of resources and schools shutting down in-person learning for a year is an important factor, especially when reading skills are best learned in person. But there is another pressing concern, one that permeates the lives of Americans far past the school buildings: Too much screen time.

So what is too much screen time? The Eugene Pediatric Association reports that children under 2 should not have access to screen time at all, and children aged 2 to 12 should only have an hour of screen time a day. Screen time, in this case, applies to time on phones, tablets, computers, or any other screen that is held close to your face. This type of screen time is different from watching a show on television, where the screen is a good distance away from the child’s eyes, and most of the blue light is not directly absorbed. Unfortunately, kids who are eight years old or even younger spend more time on video platforms than they do on TV.

And the quantity of screen time isn’t the only problem. It’s also the quality. 81% of parents who have kids between the ages of 3 and 4 allow them to watch YouTube. This can expose children to content that is inappropriate, addictive, and completely pointless. Children—unmonitored on an internet that should be for adults—are bound to get curious about the flashy clickbait thumbnails. Their undeveloped brains are easily distracted, and being exposed to a constant stream of content that aims to be as overstimulating as possible has devastating effects on their development. In fact, it can even alter the behavior of kids, making it harder for them to focus or fall asleep.

You may be wondering, if screen time and internet access is so bad for kids, then why is it such an omnipresent issue?

Why can’t parents just take away their kid’s devices?

Well, the issue may begin with the generations past. Ever since the pandemic, millennials or generation Y, are now the young adult to middle age, children having population. Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, and their parents were the Baby Boomers. The parenting styles chosen by the previous generations may have influenced the difficulties children currently have with reading and writing skills.

Gentle Parenting and Dismissive Parenting:

So, what is gentle parenting? In the most simplest terms, gentle parenting is a manner of parenting built upon empathy, communication, respect, and understanding. This way of parenting has been on the rise, mainly in contrast to the way many Millennials were raised as children. Baby Boomers used a more authoritative parenting style, with strong emphasis on education and family structure. When Millennials started to have children, they wanted a new way to parent, which led to gentle parenting. However, being too gentle can lead to becoming dismissive. Without proper discipline, kids can become more prone to misbehaving. For a parent, this can be overwhelming, so they turn to one way to keep their children quiet and occupied; screens.

In fact, 90% of millennial parents had given their children some type of screen device, either a phone or tablet. Crazy enough, a 2021 study found that nearly 80% of children have direct access to a tablet constantly, or their own. These numbers are staggering, especially since the average age of millennial children is 8.9 years of age.

But how does this all connect to reading?

Well, studies show that when children and teenagers have more than  7 hours of screen time a day, on a constant basis, it can actually shrink the cerebral cortex, and it’s responsible for memory, thinking, learning, reasoning and problem-solving skills. In addition, since electronic devices are so addictive, constant access to them can discourage children from engaging with more slow and quiet pastimes, like reading. After all, why would you take the time to read a book and actually challenge yourself if you were eight years old and could scroll through instantly gratifying youtube shorts for hours instead?

Mr. Schwarzenegger, the principal at Brunswick High school, who has been working in education for 21 years, has noticed a cell-phone problem in schools. He goes on to state, “Phones are an addiction, causing the endorphins to check and working on a phone, keeps you coming back for more.” Growing on this, he discusses how children often focus more on what is happening on their screens, than what’s happening on the page. Mr. Schwarzenegger brought up an important point: the definition of literacy has changed through the years and generations.

Back in and before the 2010s, literacy was all about how well you could read a text and process information on said page. But nowadays, literacy is about how well you can navigate the internet. How well do you know how to search for a YouTube video and follow the directions shown in the video? How well do you know how to scan a QR code?

Mr. Schwarzenegger goes on to state, “Working in the zone, a notification goes off, the moment that happens, breaks your concentration. Kids struggle to stay in the zone due to the cell phones. If you’re not paying attention, skim reading the texts instead of actually sitting down and focusing on reading the questions.”

Ms. Vaughn, a language arts teacher at Brunswick High School (BHS) is in her 7th year of teaching. She took a more direct approach with her responses on literacy, most of her opinions surrounding phone usage in the classroom, and how it leads to students falling behind. She states, “With constant access to social media, students have become accustomed to instant gratification, making it challenging for them to engage with longer, more complex texts that require sustained attention.” This touches on the points mentioned earlier about how phones are distracting. “When entertainment is available in short, highly stimulating bursts, it can be difficult for students to appreciate the slower buildup of a novel.”

Mr. Garrison, who’s been teaching for 27 years, one of the Biology teachers at BHS, brought up how screen time is an addiction to both children, and adults. “It’s a major distraction, even for adults, even adults get caught in a scrolling rabbit hole.” In addition, he discusses why some parents may give their children electronics, and why kids apply obliged. “Parents can’t entertain the kids, so giving them screens can give the parents time to do the work they need to do. Some people view spending time with parents, or going to the park, as frivolous, since phones and social media have algorithms that know exactly what the kid wants to see.”

Brunswick High School is lucky—since this school has a literacy specialist, Ms. Kowalski, who had some interesting insight, since it’s one of her responsibilities to do reading intervention. One important thing she brought up was standardized testing. Often, the mandatory tests given out, like Maryland’s own MCAP, or Virginia’s SOL tests, are made by the federal government, often lawmakers, and not educators. Teachers are also forced to bend their teaching style to make sure children pass these mandatory tests, or some schools may not receive the additional funding that tests provide. Ms. Kowalski goes on to state, “I think some of the standardized testing and curriculum decisions made by politicians who aren’t in the classroom are causing students to lose a love of reading.”

As a parent—many need to ensure that children don’t fall behind in reading. Avoid all screens before the age of 2, minus a little bit of monitored TV time. Read to your children. If you don’t have time for this, get a CD reading a book out loud. Support your child in reading by either buying age appropriate books, or borrowing them from the library. These simple things can help your kids discover the love of reading, and support their education in the long run.