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the_red_shoes, I read the gloomy NEA report on "Reading at Risk."
http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf
A few points:
This survey only compares rates of reading going back to the eighties. I will see if I can dig up anything from earlier than that.
They define "literary reading" as "novels, short stories, poetry, and plays," and lament its decline. This definition leaves out a significant category of reading material-- no, I do not mean manga, which is a whole 'nother topic-- I mean narrative nonfiction. I would turn up as one of those tragic markers of declining literacy in that survey, as my "literary reading" has indeed dropped noticeably in recent years. I've never read much poetry, used to read lots of plays but now read very few since I stopped being active in the theatre community, have always preferred long works to short stories, and most importantly, have been reading fewer novels because I've been reading more narrative nonfiction. This narrow definition of "literature" as "fiction" not only slights the literary quality and intellectual content of nonfiction, but also, I suspect, skews the poll results considerably.
(OK, yeah, so I'm a bit pissed off that this survey does not define my book as literature, and anyone who read it would not be counted as a reader of literature. In fact, going by this survey, the only things I've ever written that are available to the public and would count as literature are fanfic, because those are short stories. Although the survey is a bit dodgy as to whether anything read online can count or not-- the summary suggests that they don't, but the questions didn't specifically exclude short stories read online.)
Also, they note that readers do more charitable work and non-reading activities (such as sports) and participate more in the community (whatever that means.) They seem to feel that reading causes non-reading leisure activity, and if more people read, more people would volunteer. I suspect that there is something else which causes for both reading and community participation, and that's leisure time and a higher level of education. They note that Europeans read more than Americans, but Americans work more hours per week (that's my point, not something noted in the survey.) To give them credit, they did also ask about formal education and found that reading correlates highly with that, but I think leisure time to do anything, including read, is likely to be a big factor, and is one which the survey ignores.
Some interesting points-- though again, this is all regarding their very limited, in my opinion, definition of literature as "novels, poetry, plays, and short stories"-- is that readers of "literature" and non-readers of "literature" watch the same amount of TV.
They speculate that internet use (much of which consists of reading) and magazine and newspaper, er, reading resulted in people having less time to read the sort of "literature" defined as such by the poll. Woe!
the_red_shoes, I read the gloomy NEA report on "Reading at Risk." http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf
A few points:
This survey only compares rates of reading going back to the eighties. I will see if I can dig up anything from earlier than that.
They define "literary reading" as "novels, short stories, poetry, and plays," and lament its decline. This definition leaves out a significant category of reading material-- no, I do not mean manga, which is a whole 'nother topic-- I mean narrative nonfiction. I would turn up as one of those tragic markers of declining literacy in that survey, as my "literary reading" has indeed dropped noticeably in recent years. I've never read much poetry, used to read lots of plays but now read very few since I stopped being active in the theatre community, have always preferred long works to short stories, and most importantly, have been reading fewer novels because I've been reading more narrative nonfiction. This narrow definition of "literature" as "fiction" not only slights the literary quality and intellectual content of nonfiction, but also, I suspect, skews the poll results considerably.
(OK, yeah, so I'm a bit pissed off that this survey does not define my book as literature, and anyone who read it would not be counted as a reader of literature. In fact, going by this survey, the only things I've ever written that are available to the public and would count as literature are fanfic, because those are short stories. Although the survey is a bit dodgy as to whether anything read online can count or not-- the summary suggests that they don't, but the questions didn't specifically exclude short stories read online.)
Also, they note that readers do more charitable work and non-reading activities (such as sports) and participate more in the community (whatever that means.) They seem to feel that reading causes non-reading leisure activity, and if more people read, more people would volunteer. I suspect that there is something else which causes for both reading and community participation, and that's leisure time and a higher level of education. They note that Europeans read more than Americans, but Americans work more hours per week (that's my point, not something noted in the survey.) To give them credit, they did also ask about formal education and found that reading correlates highly with that, but I think leisure time to do anything, including read, is likely to be a big factor, and is one which the survey ignores.
Some interesting points-- though again, this is all regarding their very limited, in my opinion, definition of literature as "novels, poetry, plays, and short stories"-- is that readers of "literature" and non-readers of "literature" watch the same amount of TV.
They speculate that internet use (much of which consists of reading) and magazine and newspaper, er, reading resulted in people having less time to read the sort of "literature" defined as such by the poll. Woe!