For a long time I've been lamenting the decline of literacy among Americans. We have stopped reading books, for the most part, and the atmosphere of doom and gloom among publishers and booksellers only reinforces the idea that the books will soon go the way of print newspapers. But now the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has come out with a new study (Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy (pdf)) that claims that my pessimism is entirely misplaced: more and more Americans are supposedly reading fiction. A summary of the report can be found at the Chronicle for Higher Education:
about reading in the United States. From 2002 to 2008, the percentage
of adult Americans who read literature (defined as fiction, poetry, and
plays) grew from 46.7 percent to 50.2 percent. That jump departs from
an overall downward trend dating to 1982, when the agency began its
periodic surveys of adult Americans’ public participation in the arts.
Problem is, it was just a year ago that the NEA came out with a study that came to the opposite conclusion, namely, that was an "alarming" decline in literary readings among Americans. How could there be such a sudden reversal? The NEA stands by its conclusion(s) and says that millions of parents, teachers, librarians and civic leaders took action and promoted reading again, especially among young adults. Count me as a skeptic. I teach college part-time and have not noticed any sudden burst of reading enthusiam among my students. Some observers point out that people are just reading more online, vs. reading content in a book. But from what I see, more people are now just watching video content,or even television shows, on their laptops. They certainly are not reading fiction.
The situation may actually be better in Germany. German book-lover Katy points out on her blog that three-quarters of Germans read books. She cites a recent study published by Stiftung Lesen (Foundation for Reading): Lesen in Deutschland 2008. You can download the study here. One interesting finding concerning gender differences in reading preferences (p.16 in the study): women prefer to read novels and poetry while men like electronic media (blogs, chat rooms, etc.).
