Many adults are quietly battling the same focus and confidence struggles as students, raising questions for how schools support teachers' own professional reading.
That is according to a new survey of 2,000 adult readers by Amazon Kindle, which found the average reader loses six minutes per session to rereading and reprocessing text, driven by distraction, visual strain and dense formatting. For someone reading four times a week, that's nearly 20 hours of lost reading time a year.
And the impact goes beyond minutes lost. Nearly a quarter (23%) of adults who reread text say it dents their confidence, while almost a third (32%) have abandoned books they were enjoying simply because it felt too effortful. Three-quarters (74%) reread passages to fully understand them, and two-thirds blame distractions or interruptions rather than the material itself.
What makes this a wake-up call for schools is how invisible the problem is. Unlike childhood literacy struggles, which are actively monitored, adult reading difficulties tend to go unspoken. Rather than giving up, many adults adapt: 32% break reading into shorter sessions, 35% reread without pressure, and a fifth adjust how text is displayed. Gen Z feels this most acutely, with 51% frustrated when reading tools don't match how they read, and 56% saying it's become harder to sustain focus amid constant competing demands.
Below, The Educator speaks to Campaign ambassador Dr Kieran Kennedy, a psychiatrist and author, about why so many Australians abandon books midway, the truth behind Gen Z's attention span myth, and how small, personalised adjustments to text can rebuild reading confidence and bring friction-free focus back into classrooms.
TE: Nearly a third of people said they've ditched a book they were enjoying because it felt like too much effort. What does that tell us about how we're setting ourselves up to fail before we even start a chapter?
What this tells us that reading isn't just about motivation or interest, it's also about the mental barriers that make it difficult to get into and stay engaged with a good book. More than ever we're asking our brains to switch constantly between notifications, conversations and competing demands, so by the time we sit down to read, our ability to focus can already feel strained. If we're working with a brain that's already overloaded and tired, then things double down even more if the reading experience itself then demands extra effort because of visual strain, dense formatting or frequent interruptions. Over time, that mental friction can start to outweigh enjoyment, which helps explain why almost a third of Australians have abandoned books they were actually enjoying to start with.
TE: Gen Z came through as the group feeling this mismatch hardest. Is that down to shorter attention spans, or is it more that they've just never known reading tools that don't fight against how they consume content?
Medically speaking, it's a bit of a myth to lean into the adage that Gen Z has shorter attention spans than others. Younger Australian's are of course still incredibly capable of sustained attention, but the difference is they've grown up in an environment where there's more around them than ever before that's calling for their attention - often in bite sized attentional pieces. Traditional reading experiences haven't always evolved to keep up or become personalised and attention holding, and so for many young adults, it's less about an inability to focus and more about navigating constant competition for their attention. When reading environments reduce unnecessary friction and allow people to tailor the experience to their needs and attention, they're much more likely to stay engaged.
TE: A fifth of adults said adjusting how text looks and feels made them more confident readers. Is there a lesson there for how we present reading material to students who are already finding it a struggle?
Absolutely. Confidence is a powerful predictor of whether someone persists with reading, and we now know that small adjustments like changing font size, spacing or contrast won't solve every literacy challenge, but can reduce cognitive effort so students can devote more mental energy to understanding the content rather than trying to keep focused on and process what they're reading. The goal isn't to change what we're reading or to lower expectations, but to remove avoidable barriers that might discourage students from staying engaged in the first place. That's one of the reasons personalised reading tools, like the adjustable text and display settings available on Kindle can be so valuable, as they allow readers to adapt the experience to suit their individual needs.
TE: If cutting out everyday reading friction means people reclaim time they're already spending, rather than needing to read faster, what's the one change teachers could make to their classrooms tomorrow that would give kids that same win?
I'd encourage teachers to normalise personalising the reading experience rather than expecting every student to engage with a text in exactly the same way. Whether that's allowing students to adjust text size on digital devices, reducing distractions during independent reading or creating uninterrupted periods where they can become immersed in a book more fully, small changes help protect attention and help reduce friction. The biggest gain isn't found in reading faster, it's spending less time having to reread and falling into flow with the enjoyment of reading, because staying focused isn't as difficult. It's these factors that allow students to dive into and really feel the enjoyment and confidence that comes from making steady progress through a book or text.