Where Have All the Readers Gone?

Pretty scary news from a just release report from the National Endowment for the Arts on adult reading habits.

They found that US adults reading literature dropped from 56.4% in 1982 to 46.7% in 2002. Most startling was the finding that the number of readers in the 18-24 age group dropped 35.7% over the same period. At the same time, they didn't see a change in TV habits among adults over the same period.

I think the best analysis of this comes from the NEA chairman:
NEA Chairman Dana Gioia attributed much of the drop to the Internet and other forms of electronic entertainment. "People have become passive consumers of entertainment," Gioia said by phone. "We think of reading as passive because people do it sitting down, but it requires sustained attention. The ability to hold complicated situations in your mind is a human skill that reading develops, that has individual and social importance."

There was some other interesting data that came out of the report, including the finding that readers of literature were more than two and a half times more likely to do volunteer or charity work than non-readers. Yet another good reason to read with your child, and this NEA report isn't a bad place to start.