On Fox & Friends Weekend, the hosts didn’t ease into the topic, and they didn’t treat it like a normal “kids these days” segment either. Rachel Campos-Duffy, Charles Hurt, and Griff Jenkins framed it as something closer to an education emergency, the kind that shows up in classrooms first and then ripples into everything else.
Charles Hurt pointed to survey findings he said showed Gen Z read fewer books than any generation, and he added that more than one-third of K–12 students reported they dislike reading.
That’s not a small attitude problem, because when kids dislike something early, they usually stop practicing it, and reading is one of those skills that rusts fast.
Rachel Campos-Duffy then raised a line that sounded even harsher, quoting a Pepperdine University professor speaking to Fortune: it’s not just a lack of critical thinking, it’s an “inability to read sentences.” Rachel said the professor described feeling like they had to tap dance and read things aloud because students hadn’t read what they were assigned.
That’s when the show brought in Brooke Ooten, the co-founder of Enriched Literacy Education, and Griff Jenkins asked the blunt question: what is going on?
A Problem That Starts Earlier Than People Want To Admit
Brooke Ooten didn’t blame one single thing, but she did say the trouble starts at the earliest ages. In Brooke’s view, kids as young as primary school are falling behind on basic skills because they are not being read to and not being spoken to enough at home.
Brooke said communication skills are lower than they were even 10 to 20 years ago, and she tied that to missing human interaction. When parents and caregivers talk less, read less, and replace conversation with screens, kids lose a huge part of how language normally develops.
To underline how serious she thinks it is, Brooke cited a U.K. study she said involved 600 teachers. According to Brooke, those teachers reported children showing up unable to do basic things like know their own names, use the bathroom independently, or brush their teeth.
That detail is jarring, and it’s also a warning sign that something bigger is happening than “kids don’t like books.” If a child struggles with basic independence, it often means their daily routine has been shaped around constant prompts and constant stimulation.
My own take is that people underestimate how much early language is built on simple back-and-forth. A child learns words the old-fashioned way – someone talks, the child reacts, the adult responds again – and that loop doesn’t happen the same way with a device.
iPads In Classrooms And The “Lost Track Of Time” Effect
Brooke Ooten shifted the discussion to what she said is happening in schools, pointing to Los Angeles Unified School District as a major example. Brooke described parents saying their children are on iPads all day, and she connected that to kids zoning out from the real world.
Brooke gave a specific story she said came from a mother: her 6-year-old wet himself at the table four times, despite being otherwise neurotypical and not having a typical toileting problem. Brooke said the child was so locked into the iPad experience that he lost track of time and became overstimulated.
That’s not just embarrassing for a kid, it’s sad, and it hints at something adults don’t want to face. When a screen becomes powerful enough to override basic body signals, it’s not a “tool” anymore in the normal sense, it’s a controlling environment.
Brooke’s broader point was that we are replacing human interaction and reading with screens, and then acting surprised when kids don’t like reading.
She said iPads are “more intrinsically interesting” to the brain, describing it as dopamine lighting up because it’s exciting, while reading takes work.
I agree with her on the “work” part, and I’d add something else: reading also takes patience, and patience is hard to grow when everything in a child’s world is built to refresh, flash, and reward instantly.
What Reading Does To The Brain That Screens Don’t
Charles Hurt jumped in with a point that sounded less like politics and more like personal observation. He said people talk a lot about phones and iPads scattering the brain and causing anxiety, but not enough about the other end of the spectrum.
Charles described the value of devoting the mind to a book, learning to read deeply, and how that can calm and focus the mind. The way he put it made reading sound less like an academic chore and more like a mental skill that trains attention.
Brooke Ooten agreed, and she went even more foundational. She talked about “serve and return,” explaining that when babies make a sound and an adult responds, that is how language develops.
Brooke’s argument is that language is not downloaded into a child like an app. It’s built through real-time exchange, facial cues, tone, repetition, and a child being forced – gently – to hold attention long enough to connect meaning to words.
This is the part that worries me most, because it’s not just “can a teen finish a novel.” It’s whether kids are missing the brain training that makes later learning possible, like sticking with a hard paragraph, tracking a plot, or understanding what a sentence actually means.
The “Equity” Argument And The Results Brooke Says We’re Seeing
Brooke Ooten also addressed why districts pushed technology so hard in the first place. She said LAUSD argued that bringing tech into the classroom would “level the field” from a socioeconomic perspective, helping kids in underserved communities become tech literate.
Brooke’s rebuttal was direct: she said research shows language development has “very little” to do with means, and much more to do with how much parents and caregivers talk, interact, and read to their children.
In other words, you can have money and still raise a child in silence, and you can have less money and still raise a child surrounded by language.
Then Brooke cited another major data point she said came from The New York Times in the fall: about one-third of high school seniors are not ready for college because they are not on a basic reading level. Griff Jenkins reacted with a simple “wow,” because that number is hard to brush off.
If Brooke’s description is accurate, that means a huge chunk of young adults are being handed diplomas while struggling with the core skill that everything else depends on. In the real world, that shows up fast – job training, contracts, safety manuals, even basic emails become harder when reading stamina is weak.
The Irony Rachel Pointed Out And The Question Parents Can’t Dodge
Rachel Campos-Duffy took the conversation in a more skeptical direction, and she made an argument that landed with a lot of viewers because it feels like hypocrisy.
Rachel said “tech oligarchs” convinced schools and government to put devices into classrooms, and then those same people send their own kids to Waldorf-style environments with wooden toys.
Rachel also circled back to what Brooke Ooten had said earlier about reading at home. She noted that many moms aren’t reading to their children, and she called that “a big deal,” thanking Brooke for raising the alarm.
That’s where the segment leaves a mark, because it doesn’t end with an easy villain. Brooke talks about the home, the school, and the screen culture all feeding the same cycle – less talking, less reading, less patience, more stimulation, more avoidance of anything that feels slow.
My opinion is that the scariest part isn’t that kids like screens. Of course they do—screens are designed to be irresistible. The scary part is how quickly adults surrendered the ground without demanding proof that this was actually improving learning.
And if Brooke Ooten is right that reading takes work while screens deliver effortless dopamine, then the fix won’t be one magic program.
It will be thousands of small, stubborn choices: more reading aloud, more conversation, fewer default screens, and more respect for the quiet skill of finishing a full sentence without needing a swipe, a tap, or a video to keep going.
Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.
