Gen Z and Reading

Plus, sports gambling, data centers, and fertility rates

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Signs and Wonders” is a column that shares thoughts on news items that either do not rise to the level of a news story for MinistryWatch or are slightly (even significantly) outside of our normal charity and philanthropy “beat.” My goal is to be punchy, opinionated, and not to worry much about being slightly off brand. If that is not for you, no hard feelings. But if it is…read on.

Has Gen Z Stopped Reading? According to The Conversation, “A trove of recent articles bemoan the collapse in recreational reading among younger Americans, with COVID-related reading declines, artificial intelligence and social media often described as causes.” But the authors of that article believe these surveys miss the mark.

“Some long-standing, influential studies aren’t designed to capture how Gen Z often reads: multimodally — bouncing between print, e-book and audiobook for the same book — and on web platforms such as Wattpad, Webtoon, Kindle Unlimited, DC Universe Infinite and Marvel Comics online.

“In fact, according to our 2025 data, a growing proportion of Gen Z — 66% — is identifying as readers, up 14 percentage points from 2022. In the previous 12 months, 65% of Gen Z read at least one print book, up from 59% in 2022. These findings roughly correspond with those of the Pew Research Center for the general population across all ages. In other words, Gen Z shows us that reading isn’t dying. It’s changing.”

At MinistryWatch, we have long believed that “leaders are readers.” God gave us a book as one of his key modes of revelation to us. So this issue matters, for Christians and for everyone else. You can find the complete article here.

Sports Gambling. My friends and former Colson Center colleagues John Stonestreet and Tim Padgett have done us a service by speaking out strongly against sports gambling, which has become a scourge on the nation and threatens to ruin fair play in sports. They write, “A recently released report shows a clear correlation between legalized gambling and gambling addiction. While this should surprise absolutely no one, there is further evidence that the explosion of legalized sports gambling was a bad idea.”

They continue: “In 2018, a Supreme Court decision cleared the way for states to legalize sports betting. Since then, according to the study shared by Epic Research, gambling disorders have risen by 61% in states that allow it but is down 29% in states that have not.”

Stonestreet and Padgett point out that bankruptcies are up and savings rates are down in states that allow gambling.

This is a social experiment that has failed miserably. There are some ministries focusing on the issue, and we have written about them here. But the number of churches and ministries focusing on this issue is too few. It is my hope that more will get the message.

Access to MinistryWatch content is free. However, we hope you will support our work with your prayers and financial gifts. To make a donation, click here.

Are Data Centers Demonic? NIMBY activism is not new. Most of us know that society needs warehouses, garbage dumps, power lines, sewage treatment plants, and other unpleasant developments. We just don’t want them in our own backyards. But the fighters against data centers are now invoking God to make their arguments. Matt Long, of Granbury, Texas, recently told the city council there, “As Christians, do we think that trading 2,100 acres of natural beauty for godless technological complexes is moving us closer to the creation, or further away?” Do we think that entering into negotiations with Google, Meta and Amazon are closer to making a covenant with God, or making a deal with the devil?”

It is an interesting argument, one not wholly without merit, though (in my view) perhaps a bit overstated here. That said, I have been to Granbury, and it is a beautiful little town. I wish Matt Long well in his fight to keep his town data center free, if that is what the town wants. That said, if you are reading this on a computer (and you are, since we do not have a print edition), you have already more or less lost the moral argument against data centers. This article was brought to you by one.

Fertility and Relationships. I’ve written here before about the coming “demographic winter” wrought by low fertility rates and a sinking population. This reality sent demographers and sociologists to the drawing board to find out why. Are low fertility rates the result of economic factors? A lack of affordable housing for young and growing families? Environmental factors? A “failure to launch” among young men who live in arrested adolescence?

All these factors may play a role, but a new article by the Institute for Family Studies suggests that the quality of relationships is a key factor. Laurie DeRose highlights the recent research indicating that people who want children are more likely to have them if they are in high-quality relationships. This usually means a committed, monogamous marriage. This conclusion may seem obvious, but it is not obvious to generations raised on broken marriages. DeRose’s article unpacks the nuance and overviews the most recent research into “couple dynamics.”

Parnassus Prize to Malcolm Guite. Celebrated poet and priest Malcolm Guite’s bestselling Rabbit Room Press title “Galahad and the Grail” received the 2026 Parnassus Prize, presented during the Memoria National Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. The Parnassus Prize — inspired by Tracy Lee Simmons’ “Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin” — is annually bestowed by Memoria College upon a recently published book that best contributes to the cultivation of the Western liberal arts tradition. To hear my recent conversation with Malcolm Guite, click here.

MinistryWatch on YouTube. If you have not discovered our YouTube channel, check it out here. We now have 200 videos there, and they have attracted tens of thousands of views. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word about our work.

Readers in Greenville/Spartanburg. I am in the Upstate of South Carolina at the end of August. If you live in Greenville or Spartanburg, reach out to me. I would love to share a meal or a cup of coffee with you. My email is [email protected].