How Gen Z Discover and Consume Books

This Element examines book consumption practices of Gen Z (born 1997–2012), a generation whose formative years coincided with the internet, smartphones, and social media-digital ecosystems that transformed book discovery, consumption, and social identification. Drawing on two nationally representative US surveys (2025, n=2000; 2022, n=2075), the authors investigate paradoxical tensions in Gen Z reading: preference for print despite reliance on digital discovery mechanisms, dissonance between reader identity and actual behaviors, and evolving attitudes toward piracy and AI. The analysis reveals how Gen Z's reading practices exist within multimodal media environments with increasingly permeable format boundaries. This generation navigates a complex landscape spanning traditional bookstores to digital-only providers, where discovery is shaped by algorithms, peer influence, cross-media storytelling, and differential trust in information sources. These findings have significant implications for publishers, educators, and cultural institutions engaging young readers in fragmented media environments.