Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and Oprah Winfrey all share a daily habit that most Americans have quietly abandoned: reading books.
In fact, according to a new JPMorgan survey of more than 100 billionaires, reading ranks as the top habit that elite achievers have in common.
But among the broader public, the habit is collapsing. Two in five Americans did not read a single book in 2025, and daily reading for pleasure has plummeted some 40% over the past two decades. Experts widely point to the attention economy—supercharged by social media and increasingly AI—as a key driver of the shift away from long-form reading.
The growing decline has troubling implications for future success, according to Brooke Vuckovic, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Reading, she stressed, is a cornerstone of nuanced, in-depth analysis and communication—especially critical skills for aspiring business leaders.
“Reading long-form fiction, biography, and history demands focused attention, tolerance with ambiguity and unanswered questions or unrevealed nuance in characters and situations, and a willingness to have our preconceptions upended,” Vuckovic told Fortune. “All of these qualities are requirements of strong leadership [and] they are in increasingly short supply.”
