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Read a Book, Fatty
The Green Eyed Monster
i blame hip hopRegistered User regular
i blame hip hopRegistered User regular
Okay, just kidding about the fat part.
Anyway the National Endowment for the Arts recently released their 2007 reader survey. Here's a summary from the NEA which hits on some of the high points.
Still, the basic conclusions are pretty clear -- kids are reading less, and more reading relates to positive markers in future socioeconomics, education, and civic activity.
As for the basic questions -- should we really be this concerned, or is it just stodgy librarians upset because they're getting lonely between the stacks? What's the best way to remedy the problem? Government funding of some sort? Parenting? Communal efforts? Also, can we all agree that all those people who say whatever you say about Harry Potter, at least it gets kids to read, are statistically proven liars (and have shitty taste in literature*)?
Also I was also hoping we could make a mini informal survey of ourselves as to how much we think we read. If we eliminate my internet reading, I'd say I only read a book about every month or so. This is considerably down from how much I've read in the past, when I usually read at least one or two, and at times have spent at least a few months reading two or three books a week. I generally read non-fiction, although currently I'm trying to force myself into some fictions just to change things up. That might be why my recent reading is going so slow, though, but either way I'm dissatisfied with the current pace and am looking to improve it. So far, riding mass transit during commutes has been the most effective way for me to get reading done, because when I'm around the house I increasingly find myself drawn to sports, movies, video games, or the internet. So there's my confession.
*just kidding I've never read a Harry Potter book**, fatty.
**because I have taste.
Anyway the National Endowment for the Arts recently released their 2007 reader survey. Here's a summary from the NEA which hits on some of the high points.
And before the obvious criticisms are made, I heard a guy on the radio saying that this report did indeed include reading on the internet, and isn't just focused on traditional paper forms. Maybe he lied, though, here's a link to whole report itself if you want to dig around and find out for yourself.the NEA wrote:Among the key findings:
Americans are reading less - teens and young adults read less often and for shorter amounts of time compared with other age groups and with Americans of previous years.
* Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of non-readers doubled over a 20-year period, from nine percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004.1
* On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading.2
Americans are reading less well – reading scores continue to worsen, especially among teenagers and young males. By contrast, the average reading score of 9-year-olds has improved.
* Reading scores for 12th-grade readers fell significantly from 1992 to 2005, with the sharpest declines among lower-level readers.3
* 2005 reading scores for male 12th-graders are 13 points lower than for female 12th-graders, and that gender gap has widened since 1992.4
* Reading scores for American adults of almost all education levels have deteriorated, notably among the best-educated groups. From 1992 to 2003, the percentage of adults with graduate school experience who were rated proficient in prose reading dropped by 10 points, a 20 percent rate of decline.5
The declines in reading have civic, social, and economic implications – Advanced readers accrue personal, professional, and social advantages. Deficient readers run higher risks of failure in all three areas.
* Nearly two-thirds of employers ranked reading comprehension "very important" for high school graduates. Yet 38 percent consider most high school graduates deficient in this basic skill.6
* American 15-year-olds ranked fifteenth in average reading scores for 31 industrialized nations, behind Poland, Korea, France, and Canada, among others.7
* Literary readers are more likely than non-readers to engage in positive civic and individual activities – such as volunteering, attending sports or cultural events, and exercising.8
Still, the basic conclusions are pretty clear -- kids are reading less, and more reading relates to positive markers in future socioeconomics, education, and civic activity.
As for the basic questions -- should we really be this concerned, or is it just stodgy librarians upset because they're getting lonely between the stacks? What's the best way to remedy the problem? Government funding of some sort? Parenting? Communal efforts? Also, can we all agree that all those people who say whatever you say about Harry Potter, at least it gets kids to read, are statistically proven liars (and have shitty taste in literature*)?
Also I was also hoping we could make a mini informal survey of ourselves as to how much we think we read. If we eliminate my internet reading, I'd say I only read a book about every month or so. This is considerably down from how much I've read in the past, when I usually read at least one or two, and at times have spent at least a few months reading two or three books a week. I generally read non-fiction, although currently I'm trying to force myself into some fictions just to change things up. That might be why my recent reading is going so slow, though, but either way I'm dissatisfied with the current pace and am looking to improve it. So far, riding mass transit during commutes has been the most effective way for me to get reading done, because when I'm around the house I increasingly find myself drawn to sports, movies, video games, or the internet. So there's my confession.
*just kidding I've never read a Harry Potter book**, fatty.
**because I have taste.
The Green Eyed Monster on
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I usually only get back into reading when I've burnt myself out of more stimulating activity and need to relax.
Lately I've only really been delving into fiction for research rather than pleasure, simply because the sheer amount of effort required to find the gold in the horribly-massive piles of crap that are available wastes time I could spend doing something more stimulating than reading back covers.
Reading fiction would be a more attractive activity if there was a better filter on the stuff that comes out, especially in regards to currently-popular genres. I don't even want to think about trying to wade through all the fantasy books published in hopes of capitalizing on the Harry Potter and LotR popularity spike.
Thank heavens for Herodotus.
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It may actually be partly that I already spend 99% of my waking hours reading, whether for work or for [chat], so reading ceases to be a change of pace. In a world of texting, people may just not see text as an escape anymore.
But thanks to reading the survey summary aloud to my Wife, it's rekindled our perennial "we need to watch less television, because we'd like to read, and grok each other, more often." So cheers, Celery77. We skipped Ugly Betty, and have now committed to skipping CSI tonight as well.
Long live reading!
Well, don't mind if I do.
That's an interesting observation, and one that agrees with my feeling as well - that reading isn't like riding a bike, if you don't do it for a while your attention span will wither on the vine and will need to be built back up. I know when I take my periodic breaks from reading (like now, with all the new games coming out) I have to ease back into it with some lowball stuff before I try tackling more serious matter.
Really? When that "nonfiction" includes New Age gobbledygook, Ann Coulter, and More Lessons I Learned from Morrie as I Choked the Life from His Bitch-Ass Body? All this shows are that more and more of the few remaining readers are doing it for purely utilitarian reasons. That's not good news. People will still buy fucking cookbooks and how-to guides right up to the edge of illiteracy.
What I'm curious about is a) whether this is happening in other countries as well, and b) if, since reading has traditionally been the prerogative of people with leisure time, there has been a corresponding decline in American leisure time. I know we already work more hours than most Europeans.
As for the solution, I think it would have to be cultural in nature, and related to upbringing. Kids who don't read rarely turn into adults who do. This may just be my perception, but there seems to be an ever-increasing emphasis on scheduling every moment of kids' lives. I wouldn't blame a kid for not wanting to read or do his homework after spending all afternoon at Boy Sodomites and Little Shits T-Ball League.
But are you more comfortable with being wrong?
I like books.
If reading was going down and educational achievement was remaining steady, I wouldn't bat an eye, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
Reading is a better entertainment from compared to?
I was shocked when I went from high school into the marines and onwards about how little people read.
I know I read what I feel is an occasional time compared to people in real life it's far more than they will do in their entire life
Where better in this metric equates to "builds skills shown repeatedly to correlate to greater success in many areas later in life".
Pretty hard to debate. I like games and TV as much as the next guy, but c'mon.
Doing calculus also builds skills shown repeatedly to correlate to greater success in many areas later in life. But it would be weird to infer that we should spend more of our leisure time doing calculus. I wouldn't be uncomfortable with the assertion that reading generally builds more applicable skills than watching TV, although it's quite the blanket statement. I would, however, object to the notion that we have some transcendental obligation towards self-improvement.
Besides which, reading skills are one of the biggest correlation/causation traps out there, since reading is very much a cultural pastime of academics, who in turn tend to be financially secure and academically ambitious for their children.
Correlation doesn't equal causation. Are people more intelligent because they read, or do they read more because they are intelligent? Reading introduces people to new concepts and vocabulary, but so do other forms of media.
None of my good friends enjoy reading whatsoever and it's a rather Sisyphean effort I have to put forth if I ever read something great that I'm convinced they would enjoy. It's really a pity how few people put forth the effort to read now: as far as I know, it increases both vocabulary and language skills, allowing one to express themselves better.
Feel free to add me on whatever network, it's always more fun to play with people than alone
So calculus is an entertainment form in this retardo argument of yours?
If you just become a Harlequin Romance Novel addict, reading may actually be causing you damage. :P
The main point in getting kids into reading early on is that many adults actively -fear- reading, which limits the hell out of their options.
Options is the main thing. After options are made available, it comes down to what interests you or what is required by your social circle.
Well, couldn't you watch TV for fun and eventually start watching the Discovery Channel, History Channel, or Animal Planet?
Those channels are basically the harlequin romance novel of education. Are you seriously arguing that the detriments to the nation from higher rates of functional illiteracy are offset by the benefits of American Chopper and Big Things That Blow Up Real Good?
It's what I grew up on. That said, most of the shows on there these days aren't much better than Reality TV.
Thing is that it's much rarer for people to be afraid of TV, and much less useful information is available on TV, whereas almost all useful information on a broad scale is available in print.
It would be even better if they started teaching the people in the sciences how to write in a way that doesn't make the layman's brain catch on fire, so kids could pick up a few journal studies and get interested in those without having to resort to some jackass journalist's fifth party version of a paraphrase of a rough idea of a study they found in a doctor's office in the bad part of town.
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Honestly, what they need to do is have more publicly-broadcast university lectures on TV. That would be rad.
When we decide how to entertain ourselves we don't just focus on what's going to build the biggest skill set. That's the whole point. It's why, with rare exception, we don't do calculus for entertainment. Similarly, many people enjoy reading less than they enjoy watching TV, and that's sufficient reason for them to prefer the latter, despite whatever vocabulary or concentration building features reading may have.
And yet it strikes me as trivially obvious that, if a vast majority of a nation voluntarily choose to invest great quantities of time in the least skill-building leisure activity in existence, and the rate in which people engage in leisure activities that build important, fundamental skills is rapidly falling, that this presages something of a large problem.
They aren't making that decision in a vacuum. They might find the book a less daunting prospect if they learned the habit at an early age or lived in a culture that placed a higher premium on it.
I'll get off your lawn, then.
Did you read the OP all the way through? Internet reading is declining too.
I'm not just talking jargon, some of those things are written more awkwardly than needsbe. Admittedly, there's only so much prose training one has time for when ripping apart atoms, but egads, it's almost as bad as legal writing, which is INTENDED to be annoying to read. :P The same is true regardless of discipline.
I would be happy with a Higher Middle, though. Education needs a gateway drug.
Yeah, everyone I know who reads on a regular basis was read to as a child. It seems to be THE determining factor. Basically, if your parents value reading, you will.
I'm pretty sure the sky's not going to fall because the young folk are watching the tee vee. What're the practical consequences that you foresee from reading falling out of favor?