SAN DIEGO — Here is something you didn't need a library card to figure out.

Americans read fewer books than we used to, and the books that we do read are shorter. We spend less time in bookstores and more time on electronic devices. And instead of bucking this trend, public schools have caved in and assigned fewer books.

Even so, is the end of reading actually at hand? And if so, would that really mean the end of the world?

The folks at The Atlantic think so. The cover story of the August 2026 issue — which was written by Rose Horowitch — is titled: "The Age of Reading Is Over."

In 2022, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer than half of Americans read a book of any kind. Only 38% read a novel or short story.

And according to the National Institutes of Health, just 16% of Americans read for pleasure on any given day, compared to 28% back in 2004.

I admit that those statistics are troubling. But I'm also disturbed by the condescending tone of this story.

Despite an Ivy League education, I can't shake my upbringing. I grew up in a small farming town in Central California, where people are used to being looked down on by sophisticates in Los Angeles or San Francisco. So I cringe whenever I catch a whiff of elitism.

During a recent appearance on "The Michael Smerconish Show" on Sirius/XM, Horowitch insisted that reading and writing built civilization. And so, she said, without them, Americans will have lower IQ's and fewer cognitive skills.

"The end of reading will fundamentally change everything about society," she said. "It will change how we think. It will change our politics. It will change our culture. It will change the way we tell the history of our civilization."

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to confront the Chicken Little in the room. Is reading time really over?

I don't believe so. The Publishing Industrial Complex is rich and mighty, and it will not go down without a fight.

Horowitch herself acknowledges that, last year, sales of print books were higher than they were a decade ago.

Rumors of reading's demise might be greatly exaggerated.

Yet, Horowitch notes, about 20% of Americans appear to be buying about 80% of the books.

Let's assume the doomsayers are right that books are going the way of the dinosaur — only the meteor is made up of gizmos like smartphones, social media and artificial intelligence.

Would that be the end of civilization as we know it?

Not necessarily. The human brain receives and processes information in many different ways. This is something I picked up over nearly a quarter century of being married to a former Montessori teacher, a reading specialist, a licensed speech therapist and a certified academic language therapist who treats children with dyslexia — a language disability characterized by difficulty with reading and spelling

No, I don't have four wives. This is all one person.

As a professional communicator for more than 36 years, I've overcome my own initial provincialism about reading being the key to all knowledge. Now I appreciate different forms of communication — especially when it comes to reaching those whose brains are wired in a way that reading doesn't come easily.

As long as people take in facts, figures, and my favorite — stories — what does it matter how they do it? Reading gives way to audio. Audio yields to video. And video morphs into virtual reality. That's how innovation works.

I think about the Harvard classmate who sat next to me through an hour-long lecture on political leadership and didn't take a single note. Later, over lunch, I asked him if he had picked up anything. He recited most of the lecture from memory. I never asked my friend if he avoided note-taking because he had dyslexia. But that would make sense.

As someone who has been writing professionally for more than three decades, who wrote a book at 26, who has published more than three million words, and who has had a lifetime of opportunities spring from the written word, I know that even having such thoughts makes me a heretic in my tribe of scribes.

I can live with that. What I don't want to live with is being part of a society where we marginalize those who have difficulty reading by teaching that they're intellectually deficient.

The problem is not those who learn differently. The problem is those of us who lack the imagination to define intelligence more broadly.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Christin Hume at Unsplash