I’ve no substantiation for these guesses but one thing that comes to mind is that boys were more likely to get into computers in the early eras of tech and that time sink meant they were less likely to build the habit of reading. TV is another possibility, Gen X was the first to grow up with TVs being widespread and boys probably spent more time on that.
Comment on Australians, especially men, are reading less than ever before
Ilandar@lemmy.today 3 days ago
What happened to Gen X men? That gap is massive, their numbers are nearly as low Gen Z men.
Tau@aussie.zone 3 days ago
psud@aussie.zone 2 days ago
Same thing that happened to the generations after x: computer games, consoles. Books were big for me when I was young, but I hardly have time to read now
Also not much of generation X is retired
makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Gen x here. Techy from 12 years old roughly. My hand writing is atrocious. I read until about 17.
guillem@aussie.zone 3 days ago
Gen X here. I was such an avid reader until my late 30’s and I have no idea what happened. It was either when I emigrated from my country and maybe I had too much on my plate, or the internet finally taking its toll on my ability to concentrate.