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A recent report by Common Sense Media found that a third of 13-year-olds and 45 percent of 17-year-olds say they read for pleasure only one or two times a year, if that.

Do you read for pleasure? How often? What do you read?

In the Op-Ed article “Read, Kids, Read,” the columnist Frank Bruni writes:

I’m incessantly asking my nephews and nieces what they’re reading and why they’re not reading more. I’m reliably hurling novels at them, and also at friends’ kids. I may well be responsible for 10 percent of all sales of “The Fault in Our Stars,” a teenage love story to be released as a movie next month. Never have I spent money with fewer regrets, because I believe in reading — not just in its power to transport but in its power to transform. So I was crestfallen on Monday, when a new report by Common Sense Media came out. It showed that 30 years ago, only 8 percent of 13-year-olds and 9 percent of 17-year-olds said that they “hardly ever” or never read for pleasure. Today, 22 percent of 13-year-olds and 27 percent of 17-year-olds say that. Fewer than 20 percent of 17-year-olds now read for pleasure “almost every day.” Back in 1984, 31 percent did. What a marked and depressing change. I know, I know: This sounds like a fogy’s crotchety lament. Or, worse, like self-interest. Professional writers arguing for vigorous reading are dinosaurs begging for a last breath. We’re panhandlers with a better vocabulary. But I’m coming at this differently, as someone persuaded that reading does things — to the brain, heart and spirit — that movies, television, video games and the rest of it cannot. There’s research on this, and it’s cited in a recent article in The Guardian by Dan Hurley, who wrote that after “three years interviewing psychologists and neuroscientists around the world,” he’d concluded that “reading and intelligence have a relationship so close as to be symbiotic.” In terms of smarts and success, is reading causative or merely correlated? Which comes first, “The Hardy Boys” or the hardy mind? That’s difficult to unravel, but several studies have suggested that people who read fiction, reveling in its analysis of character and motivation, are more adept at reading people, too: at sizing up the social whirl around them. They’re more empathetic. God knows we need that.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …

— What do you think of the Common Sense Media study? Does it ring true in terms of the teenagers you know?

— Do you agree with Frank Bruni that “reading does things — to the brain, heart and spirit — that movies, television, video games and the rest of it cannot”? If so, why? If not, why not?

— When did you last read something for fun? What did you read? How often, in general, do you read for pleasure?

— When has reading something, whether for pleasure or because it was assigned, “transported” you?

— What are the best books you’ve read on your own, for fun? What books would you recommend to others looking for pleasure reading? Why?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.