AI gives students more reasons to not read books. It’s hurting their literacy

A perfect storm is brewing for reading. AI arrived as both kids and adults were already spending less time reading books than they did in the not-so-distant past. As a linguist, I study how technology influences the ways people read, write, and think. This includes the impact of artificial intelligence, which is dramatically changing how people engage with books or other kinds of writing, whether it’s assigned, used for research, or read for pleasure. I worry that AI is...