The National Endowment for the Arts has released a new study that examines reading in America:

To Read or Not To Read gathers and collates the best national data available to provide a reliable and comprehensive overview of American reading today. While it incorporates some statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2004 report, Reading at Risk, this new study contains vastly more data from numerous sources. Although most of this information is publicly available, it has never been assembled and analyzed as a whole. To our knowledge, To Read or Not To Read is the most complete and up-to-date report of the nation’s reading trends and—perhaps most important—their considerable consequences.

A Key finding from the study is Americans are spending less time reading:

  • Nearly half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure.
  • On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading.
  • Although nominal spending on books grew from 1985 to 2005, average annual household spending on books dropped 14% when adjusted for inflation.

The NEA says this decline has "civic, social, and economic implications" and points out in their study that "nearly two-thirds of employers ranked reading comprehension "very important" for high school graduates. Yet 38 percent consider most high school graduates deficient in this basic skill." And, "Literary readers are more likely than non-readers to engage in positive civic and individual activities – such as volunteering, attending sports or cultural events, and exercising."

Frank Cost, in his book The New Medium of Print: Material Communication in the Internet Age provides insight into what a decline in reading might mean for print.

"Here’s why I think it is safe to make the connection between the habit of literary reading and the authority of print. Literary reading is different from other forms of reading in that it requires a reader to begin at the beginning and follow a linear argument all the way through to the end. Other forms of reading, newspaper or magazine reading for example, allow the reader to jump around, choosing to read some items, and not to read others. What this means for civilization and the future of democracy remains unclear. But what is clear is that people who do not acquire the disciplined habit of reading books are less likely to develop the automatic responses to print that contribute to the power of the medium. If you are not a reader, it is less likely that you will open a catalog that appears in your mailbox."

Whatever these new findings mean for civilization or print, I think it can be said that interactive media is readjusting our traditional media consumption habits.

The report is available for free at http://www.nea.gov/news/news07/TRNR.html

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