When I was a senior in high school, I admitted myself into rehab.
Not the kind with fluorescent lights and group therapy but a self-prescribed rehab from my constant companion: my phone. My phone addiction took away my ability to sit in silence, focus for any length of time, or engage deeply with anything meaningful. As Oxford Press might put it, I was a victim of “brain rot.”
So I quit. For an entire year, I turned off notifications, deleted social media, and kept my phone out of reach. Unsurprisingly, while ghosting my old friend, I found that boredom was my new enemy. I faced a pressing question: What should I do with my new surplus of free time?
At first, I thought I’d get ahead on my schoolwork, but COVID-19 quickly threw a wrench into those plans. With school on pause and the world locked down, I was stuck at home with nowhere to go and nothing to do. That’s when I stumbled on something I hadn’t given much thought to before—books.
Reading in a Scrolling World
At first, reading was just a way to fight off boredom. My first choice was Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Ironically, it gave me a glimpse into the life of the man who had designed the device I was trying to escape. I loved it. Somewhere between Jobs’s story and the rhythm of reading, I found something transformative. Books didn’t just fill empty hours. They opened up new worlds, challenged how I saw things, and made me think in ways my phone never could.
What surprised me most was how different reading was from scrolling. My phone had trained me to skim, to consume quickly, and to expect instant gratification. Books demanded something deeper: focus, patience, and the willingness to sit with ideas that don’t immediately resolve. This wasn’t easy at first. But in return for my patience, reading began offering the ability to wrestle with complexity.
Books didn’t just fill empty hours. They made me think in ways my phone never could.
Unfortunately, this experience is becoming less common for our generation. Rose Horowitch from The Atlantic recently published an article with a telling name: “How Gen Z Came to See Books as a Waste of Time.” Horowitch mentions how college professors are noticing their students read less, unable to allocate sufficient chunks of time to read longer works.
These aren’t isolated anecdotes; they’re symptoms of a larger problem. Jean Twenge’s research backs this up. In 1976, nearly 40 percent of high school seniors read six or more books a year for pleasure. By 2021, that had plummeted to just 13 percent. Even more alarming, the percentage of high school seniors who didn’t read a single book for fun jumped from 11.5 percent to 41 percent over the same period.
Before you label me a boomer in a Gen Z body, hear me out. This isn’t about nostalgia for a simpler time. It’s not about longing for the days before smartphones or bringing paper back to schools. And this isn’t just a crisis for classrooms; it’s a challenge to our generation.
Observers Scroll. Builders Read.
In 2024, Oxford’s Word of the Year was “brain rot”—a term that perfectly captures the endless scrolling and shallow consumption that have dulled our ability to think critically. And while it might be tempting to accept the common “kids these days” generational snobbery and resign ourselves to a future as helpless, anxious, doomscrolling victims, I want to encourage us to see this as an opportunity. If ours is a “brain rot” culture, then we, as Gen Z Christians, have a unique chance to stand out. In a culture of brain rot, we can be builders.
Builders aren’t just creators; they’re people who take what’s broken, neglected, or shallow and work to make it whole, meaningful, and lasting. In a culture that often values noise over substance, builders cultivate depth. In a world shaped by quick takes, they wrestle with complexity. And at the heart of it all, in a world of rot, builders read.
Western civilization itself was built by readers.
Aristotle studied under Plato. Jefferson devoured Locke. Nietzsche sparred with Dostoevsky. Ben Franklin loved Cicero. Patrick Henry knew the Bible.
For Christians, it’s deeper than that. As people of the Word, we’re called to read, think, and engage with the world in a way that reflects God’s truth. And Christian builders have always done this—wrestling with the ideas of their time and using what they learned to shape culture. Paul knew Greek philosophy (Acts 17). C. S. Lewis loved George MacDonald. Martin Luther King Jr. studied Gandhi. Blaise Pascal learned from Augustine. Isaac Newton studied Galileo. Florence Nightingale read John Stuart Mill.
If the story of the past shows us anything, it’s that readers are those who can turn the page of history. That’s because reading teaches us how to think critically, understand context, and navigate complexities—all vital skills for understanding our culture and building a better one.
Readers are those who can turn the page of history.
High Conflict reveals how societies become trapped in cycles of division, while Anna Karenina makes you question if division is tearing apart your family.
The Brothers Karamazov lays bare the darkness of the human condition, while The Weight of Glory reminds us that if we truly understood the eternal significance of every human soul, we’d be “tempted to worship” one another.
The Righteous Mind unpacks why good people differ profoundly, while Letter from Birmingham Jail challenges us to act on justice even amid disagreement.
Harry Potter celebrates courage and love, while 1984 warns of control and fear. Together, these books ask how power shapes our world.
Books help us navigate the tensions between competing truths, wrestle with life’s hardest questions, and cultivate empathy for others. In a world consumed by quick takes, hashtags, and hollow slogans, we desperately need the nuance and depth that reading brings.
Where “vibes” are the ultimate authority, we Gen Z Christians have the chance to reclaim vision. Our generation is hungry for a worldview that can’t fit on a yard sign—one that offers clarity without oversimplifying and compassion without compromise. But pursuing that kind of depth means breaking free from distractions and resisting the pull of instant gratification. Phones may offer slogans that sell, but books give us wisdom that builds.
“The Most Practical and Engaging Book on Christian Living Apart from the Bible”
“If you’re going to read just one book on Christian living and how the gospel can be applied in your life, let this be your book.”—Elisa dos Santos, Amazon reviewer.
In this book, seasoned church planter Jeff Vanderstelt argues that you need to become “gospel fluent”—to think about your life through the truth of the gospel and rehearse it to yourself and others.
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