That stat about book club attendance dropping 40% in the last decade hit me hard

I was looking through some old Library of Congress data from 2014 and found out in-person book club meetings have dropped by 40 percent since then. My own group in Austin went from 12 regulars down to 4 after the pandemic. We tried switching to Zoom but three people just stopped coming altogether. Has anyone else seen their club shrink like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

barnes.morgan2d ago

Oh man, this hits close to home. I read somewhere that a big part of the decline is just how much life has sped up for everyone in the last ten years. People are stretched thin between work and family and scrolling on their phones, and committing to a monthly in-person thing feels like a burden now. Our group tried a hybrid model where we meet in person every other month and do a group chat in between, but that also lost steam after a while. Have you found any format that actually keeps people coming back?

brian_ward552d ago

Had a buddy whose D&D group just works on a "show up if you can, no guilt" rule and a group text to coordinate. People drop in and out but the core four or five have been meeting for two years now.