Spring Break
Latest study finds few reading for pleasure
Issue date: 11/29/07
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The decline in free reading time means American culture is at risk, according those who have been studying literary habits for nearly twenty years.
In a study compiled in 1987, around 17,000 Americans were sampled by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
The study investigated the percentage of those who had attended artistic performances, read literature or visited museums in the previous year.
After the NEA collected these results, they issued a grave warning for the nation.
The survey, entitled "A Nation at Risk," had revealed a younger generation of Americans "threatened by the rising tide of mediocrity."
A similar study was more recently compiled and published.
Entitled "Reading at Risk," the report supports those findings and further focuses on a more specific question: how much time on average does the average America dedicate to reading for pleasure?
In "Reading at Risk", the NEA investigates what they call "a culture at risk."
The number of Americans who have engaged in literary reading for pleasure has declined seven percent from the results of a 1992 survey, dropping to 46.7 percent from 54 percent.
According to the authors of the study, such a decline indicates a threat to other forms of "active civil participation," which they claim is directly correlated with the rise in popularity of other forms of electronic media.
For Doug Mao, an English professor, the rise in popularity of visual media is "very worrisome."
"If you're not reading for pleasure - or reading at all, no visual medium does for you what novels, poems and other forms of literature do.
"While film can do things that literature cannot, there's an intimacy of experience, a complexity of thought that visual media do not offer you," Mao said.
"Without that experience, I believe people would feel in cruder ways and be less able to interact with people different or even similar to themselves constructively."
In a study compiled in 1987, around 17,000 Americans were sampled by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
The study investigated the percentage of those who had attended artistic performances, read literature or visited museums in the previous year.
After the NEA collected these results, they issued a grave warning for the nation.
The survey, entitled "A Nation at Risk," had revealed a younger generation of Americans "threatened by the rising tide of mediocrity."
A similar study was more recently compiled and published.
Entitled "Reading at Risk," the report supports those findings and further focuses on a more specific question: how much time on average does the average America dedicate to reading for pleasure?
In "Reading at Risk", the NEA investigates what they call "a culture at risk."
The number of Americans who have engaged in literary reading for pleasure has declined seven percent from the results of a 1992 survey, dropping to 46.7 percent from 54 percent.
According to the authors of the study, such a decline indicates a threat to other forms of "active civil participation," which they claim is directly correlated with the rise in popularity of other forms of electronic media.
For Doug Mao, an English professor, the rise in popularity of visual media is "very worrisome."
"If you're not reading for pleasure - or reading at all, no visual medium does for you what novels, poems and other forms of literature do.
"While film can do things that literature cannot, there's an intimacy of experience, a complexity of thought that visual media do not offer you," Mao said.
"Without that experience, I believe people would feel in cruder ways and be less able to interact with people different or even similar to themselves constructively."
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