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Gen Z Leads the Reading Trend in Digital Entertainment 2025

In the second semester of 2025, a shift occurred in the digital consumption patterns of Gen Z in Indonesia. This is marked by a decline in the percentage of mobile entertainment activities.

Jakpat captured this trend through a survey conducted in H2 2025, involving 2.240 respondents to map how Indonesians access digital entertainment and social media. The results show a drop in interest in mobile entertainment. More specifically, 83% of respondents used social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok; down 9% from last year.

Other digital entertainment activities include playing games (40%) and listening to music on streaming platforms (34%). About 22% enjoy reading books, comics, or novels on digital platforms, while 13% listen to podcasts. The sharpest decline was seen in OTT streaming services such as Netflix, Vidio, and Viu, which fell from 48% to 14% within a year.

Gen Z Leads in Reading Interest

Amid this overall decline, reading stands out as a positive anomaly, with a higher percentage than watching or listening to content on streaming platforms. By generation, reading activity is highest among Gen Z (26%), compared to Millennials (20%) and Gen X (18%).

“Gen Z now tends to shift their screen time from repetitive passive content consumption toward reading activities that are considered to provide greater depth of meaning and mental calm,” said Aska Primardi, Head of Research at Jakpat.

This rise in reading interest aligns with data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), which shows the national reading interest index increasing from 66.77% in 2023 to 72.44% in 2024.

“This upward dynamic is driven by a change in perceptions of books, which are now, by Gen Z, regarded as part of a healthy lifestyle and a search for identity, rather than merely an academic task,” Aska explained.

He added, “The increase in reading interest among Gen Z does not occur organically because they abandon gadgets, but rather because social media algorithms (TikTok/Instagram) have succeeded in ‘selling’ reading activities as something cool, exclusive, and emotional.”

This can be seen from the role of two major sub-communities on social media, namely BookTok (on TikTok) and Bookstagram (on Instagram). Both have transformed the face of literacy from an academic activity into a highly interactive social trend. “Through these two platforms, reading books is no longer considered boring, but instead has become a symbol of status and a new identity for Gen Z in the second semester of 2025,” Aska concluded.