The widespread use of AI tools and social media platforms has contributed to a sharp deterioration in the reading skills of high-school students around the world, according to the OECD, with potential implications for the long-term economic outlook.
Between 2015 and 2025, the average reading score dropped by 28 points for students from OECD members—which are mostly rich countries—and by 16 points elsewhere. A decline of 20 points is roughly equivalent to losing one year of education. As part of the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment, students were also tested on their abilities in science and math, and also proved less able than their 2015 counterparts, but the deterioration was not as sharp. OECD scores in math fell by 22 points, and elsewhere by just eight.
Students have become increasingly “hasty” in their engagement with texts, giving fast but often incorrect responses, a development he attributed to digitalization and screen use, according to the OECD’s director for education and skills. “The stronger a student’s reading ability, the easier it becomes to develop knowledge in every subject area,” he said. “According to PISA, the education systems that experienced the biggest drops in reading also tended to see larger falls in maths and science performance.”
In science, OECD members saw a seven-point drop in average scores across the decade, while other countries were unchanged.
U.S. students ranked 13th in reading, having performed worse than in 2022. they climbed the rankings to 27th as students from other countries saw their scores fall While they performed about as well in math as in 2022. Among other rich countries, the U.K. recorded improvements across all three subjects, and moved into the top 10 in each.
One surprising feature of the decline in reading ability since 2018 is that it has been greatest among what the OECD terms “advantaged” students, or those whose parents are high-earners. Those students continue to perform better than their counterparts from poorer homes in the PISA tests, but the gap has narrowed. They also ranked 13th in science, another improvement.
