New report: More and more young people are engaged in culture - but the reading is raging

Between 2007 and 2009, the proportion of young people who engaged in cultural activities in their spare time decreased, but since then the trend has fluctuated. Today, more and more young people are devoted to culture. It is a matter of consuming both culture and also of their own creation, according to a report from MUCF.

- It's fantastic. We know that active leisure time affects young people's development in a positive way. We also see an association between active leisure time and reduced mental illness, says Lena Lena Nyberg, director general at MUCF, to the Culture News.

The increased cultural interest is particularly evident among young people born abroad. There, the proportion that practices culture has doubled since 2007, from 20 to 39 percent. Almost half of foreign-born girls practice culture every week. Among foreign-born boys, the proportion is 31 percent.

- We know that some of the newly arrived young people who came to Sweden in 2015 devote themselves more to culture, which is a good way to learn the language and enter Swedish society.

What stands out in the report is that the group of young people who read books has been halved between 2007 and 2018, from 60 to 30 percent. Lena Nyberg sees this as a major problem.

- We know that reading has a major impact on language management, both word comprehension and the ability to formulate in writing. Although there are many ways to communicate digitally today, the written word is the basis.

Here, however, young foreign-borns deviate from the trend: 2018 read almost every second young foreign-born every week, compared to just under one-third of young foreign-born. They also visit libraries to a greater extent than children born in Sweden.

Although one in three young people aged 16 to 25 state that they sing, play instruments, play theater or the like every week, active leisure is far from reality for everyone.

- It is above all LGBTQ youth, young people with functional variations and foreign-born who cannot participate, and that is worrying. We can note several factors that affect not engaging in leisure activities such as time, money and geographical distances, says Lena Nyberg.