Maybe they’re panicking somewhat prematurely. I mean, you’re reading this right now. And I know plenty of smart, sophisticated adults who love to read—everything from newsletters and magazines to novels. Of course, it’s no surprise that the majority of Americans read much less than they used to.

According to the National Endowment for the Arts, which conducts the most comprehensive survey of the nation’s reading habits, fewer than half of all adults reported having read a book of any kind in 2022. Only 38% read a novel or short story. A study analyzing 236,000 responses to the American Time Use Survey found that the proportion of Americans who read for pleasure on any given day fell from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023.

The decline in reading cuts across age groups, gender, and education levels. Even the demographics that traditionally read the most—retirees, women, and college graduates—have seen a collapse. Maybe it’s our dwindling attention spans? We can’t sit through long movies. And the books that people do read are simpler than they used to be. New York Times best sellers today have sentences that are about one-third shorter than they were a century ago. Longer sentences aren’t inherently better. But their former ubiquity suggests an age when Americans had the inclination and ability to read serious works of literature.

According to The Atlantic, this shift is often referred to as a literacy crisis. And it’s true that Americans’ basic reading skills are declining. Fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores have slid for the past decade. Amanda Kordeliski, who is on the board of the American Association of School Librarians, told me that she and her fellow librarians have had to buy new books to accommodate students’ diminished reading levels. Some of the most popular are graphic novels: updated classics such as the Magic Tree House series for elementary-school students, and manga for middle and high schoolers.

And yet, strangely, Americans are probably reading more words than ever before. What has changed is what they read, and how. People are bombarded with emails, text messages, X posts, Reddit threads, Instagram captions. This explosion of textual fragments has come at the expense of devoting sustained attention to longer written works that convey rich and complicated information. But as we’ve discussed before on Valet., literature will make you more knowledgeable, more compassionate and empathetic. Attributes we definitely need more of these days.

U.S. forces on Wednesday attacked Iran for a second consecutive day, officials said, hours after President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran “over” and predicted that additional U.S. military action “probably” would occur.

American forces carried out about 90 strikes at the direction of the president “to further degrade [Iran’s] ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” according to statements from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the region. The waterway has been a source of friction both militarily and economically in recent weeks, as Iranian forces have been accused of attacking commercial vessels and the United States has responded.

So a war that began with the goal of degrading Iran’s missile capabilities and destroying what remained of its nuclear program has evolved into an open-ended fight over the world's most important energy chokepoint. A U.S. official told Axios the current escalation could last a day or two, a week or a month, depending on whether Iran continues its attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

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When you think of a package of berries you might find at the supermarket, do you have the mental image of the Driscoll’s logo? Yeah, that’s not a coincidence. I had no idea how huge they were. The company began as a multifamily farm in 1904, patented its first strain of strawberries in 1958 and the rest is history. It’s still controlled by family members, but is now a $7 billion behemoth.

They ship four billion containers of highly perishable fruit across 60 countries each year. (That clear ventilated plastic clamshell box? They invented it the 1990s. According to Circana, a market research firm, Driscoll’s is now the second-highest-earning food brand in America, behind only Coca-Cola. And they’re responsible for berries’ journey from fragile, local, seasonal treat to worldwide refrigerator staple and marketing juggernaut.

Global production has tripled since 2000, according to research from the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, and still cannot keep up with demand. In sales and volume, berries are the fastest-growing category in American produce, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to the New York Times, Driscoll’s today is less a farming business than a research and marketing enterprise, harvesting berry-related data instead of berries. They’re constantly breeding and refining the fruits, so that they’re tastier, more durable for transit and sitting on our counters.