National Endowment for the Arts Announces New ReadingStudy

Chief finding in the study: people aren’t reading like they used to. The biggest declines come with the younger readers, with Americans aged 15-24 spending just 7 minutes daily reading, on average. Related to this decline are piss-poor results for reading scores. According to the report, “reading scores for 12th-grade readers fell significantly from 1992 to 2005, with the sharpest declines among lower-level readers.” (I have often thought that my students are generally not as capable readers as I remember having been, and as I remember many of my peers having been in college.)

The worrying thing about this for me has nothing to do with the bottom-line of being an author, though of course, one always hopes for an audience for what one writes. No, what worries me more than anything is that books can be transformative, not only for individuals, but for societies. If I were not an avid reader, I’d not be vegan, I’d never have thought about the structure of power and control in our world, I’d never have considered many of the alternatives for living my life as I do. I might have come to these ideas in other ways, but books have always opened up new lines of possibility and thought for me, they’ve entertained me, and been some of the best company I’ve ever had. In short, books have made me not only who I am today, they’ve made me a better and smarter me.

How many people are foregoing improving themselves and their societies because they’re foregoing reading?

Addendum, 28 January: I forgot to provide a link to the original report.