"A good book is the best of friends, the same to-day and for ever."
Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810-1889), Of Reading
A New York Times article posted Monday, January 11, says a report released by the National Endowment of the Arts, and based on U.S. Census data, indicates that adults are reading more fiction.
This trend is a reversal from the results of a similar study done in 2007, which bemoaned a noticeable drop in reading, and that linked a decline in reading-test scores to a fall in reading for fun. The 2007 report also collected data showing that the proportion of adults who read regularly for pleasure had declined.
Only recently have researchers and educators delved into the role the Internet plays in these figures, and the debate is fierce.
The NYT article about this trend is the second in a series by Motoko Rich, The Future of Reading, "that will look at how the Internet and other technological and social forces are changing the way people read."
Fiction Reading Increases for Adults
After years of bemoaning the decline of a literary culture in the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) says in a report that it now believes a quarter-century of precipitous decline in fiction reading has reversed.
The report, "Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy," being released Monday [so no link is available yet], is based on data from a survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau in 2008. Among its chief findings is that for the first time since 1982, when the bureau began collecting such data, the proportion of adults 18 and older who said they had read at least one novel, short story, poem or play in the previous 12 months has risen.
(Rich, Fiction)
In 2003, The Nancy Hanks Center in Washington, DC, released "The 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA)," ..."[which] investigated different forms of participation, including viewing or listening to performing arts on television or radio, reading literature, visiting historic sites, performing and creating art, owning art and taking arts classes..."
...The SPPA also asks about reading habits. In 2002, 56 percent of respondents indicated they had read a book during the previous twelve months, about the same as in 1992.
However, the percentage of respondents reading literature, defined in the survey as plays, poetry or novels, decreased by 8 percentage points from 1992 to 2002 (46 percent of 2002 respondents), a statistically significant drop.
"Books which are no books."
Charles Lamb (1775-1834), Detached Thoughts on Books
In any contemporary discussion of reading, one has to consider what affects technology is having on our reading habits.
The 2002 SPPA asked several questions regarding use of the Internet. About 53 percent of respondents said they use the Internet. A total of 19 percent of all survey respondents (one-third of Internet users) reported exploring at least one arts topic on the Internet.
Approximately one-half of U.S. adults experienced "literature" in some way in 2002 (poetry, plays, novels or short stories).
In an interesting aside, "of the art forms, music is the most frequent topic of Internet investigation, totaling 13 percent of respondents, or 27 million American adults. The second most commonly investigated arts topic on the Internet is literature (9 percent of respondents), followed by visual arts (6 percent), theater (4 percent), dance (2 percent) and opera (1 percent)."
The first article in Rich’s series, Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? (July 27, 2008) scrutinizes the issues of online reading: whether the Internet is beneficial – preparing students for future jobs, teaching non-lineal thought, and increasing the ranks of minority readers – or deleterious – distracting, limiting attention spans, and curtailing cognitive enrichment.
...The discussion [of what it means to read in the digital age] is playing out among educational policy makers and reading experts around the world, and within groups like the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association.
As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books...
Some "Web evangelists" say the Internet has created a new kind of reading that deserves merit, particularly in that it will help children excel in their future, digital-age jobs.
...Few who believe in the potential of the Web deny the value of books. But they argue that it is unrealistic to expect all children to read "To Kill a Mockingbird"...for fun." (Rich, Online)
Personally, I find that statement not just incorrect, but verging on evil. "To Kill a Mockingbird" rocks. Any child devouring the Harry Potter books – among many titles and series equally tasty – would tell you that reading is, indeed, fun.
There is even a movement to add a Web-skills section to the SATs, "evaluating their proficiency on the Internet just as they are tested on their print reading comprehension."
In the years since I took them, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) has replaced the (shudder) section of similes with a five-paragraph essay. The ETS has already developed a digital literacy test known as iSkills "that requires students to solve informational problems by searching for answers on the Web." Although it won’t be required for U.S. students, some countries will begin participation this year.
According to Stephen Denis, product manager at ETS, "of the more than 20,000 students who have taken the iSkills test since 2006, only 39 percent of four-year college freshmen achieved a score that represented 'core functional levels' in Internet literacy." (Rich, Online)
So is reading on the Internet really reading? Is reading a book in hand so different than reading it on Kindle?
Are the ROTFLs, IMHOs, and CUL8Rs infiltrating, influencing or cursing the English language?
Some traditionalists warn that digital reading is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories... Zigzagging through a cornucopia of words, pictures, video and sounds, they say, distracts more than strengthens readers. And many youths spend most of their time on the Internet playing games or sending instant messages, activities that involve minimal reading at best. (Rich, Online)
Data from the 2002 SPPA portrayed "a sobering report linking flat or declining national reading test scores among teenagers with the slump in the proportion of adolescents who said they read for fun."
...According to Department of Education data cited in the released, just over a fifth of 17-year-olds said they read almost every day for fun in 2004, down from nearly a third in 1984. Nineteen percent of 17-year-olds said they never or hardly ever read for fun in 2004, up from 9 percent in 1984. (It was unclear whether they thought of what they did on the Internet as "reading.")
"Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media," Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., wrote in the report’s introduction, "they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading." (Rich, Online)
I’ve never read his poetry, but IMHO Gioia, who was appointed by W in 2002, is a prig and a patsy whose primary job description was to make people forget Karen Finley. Granted, the NEA budget rose under his pandering, but the guy wrote for Atlantic Monthly. NISM?
[Fun Fact: Gioia was W’s second choice to lead the NEA; Michael P. Hammond, a composer, died only a week after taking office.]
Fiction Reading Increases for Adults raises what is arguably the core question: how to assign weight to what we’re reading, as opposed to how much or of which kind.
"The question of how to value different kinds of reading is complicated because people read for many reasons. There is the level required of daily life — to follow the instructions in a manual or to analyze a mortgage contract. Then there is a more sophisticated level that opens the doors to elite education and professions. And, of course, people read for entertainment, as well as for intellectual or emotional rewards...
...Critics of reading on the Internet say they see no evidence that increased Web activity improves reading achievement. 'What we are losing in this country and presumably around the world is the sustained, focused, linear attention developed by reading,' said Gioia. 'I would believe people who tell me that the Internet develops reading if I did not see such a universal decline in reading ability and reading comprehension on virtually all tests."...
...Some scientists worry that the fractured experience typical of the Internet could rob developing readers of crucial skills. "Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode," said Ken Pugh, a cognitive neuroscientist at Yale who has studied brain scans of children reading.
I’ve read articles both pro and con as to whether computers have had positive or negative impact on minority students, particularly those coming from low-income households, where a personal computer and Internet access are unavailable.
...A recent study of more than 700 low-income, mostly Hispanic and black sixth through 10th graders in Detroit found that those students read more on the Web than in any other medium, though they also read books. The only kind of reading that related to higher academic performance was frequent novel reading, which predicted better grades in English class and higher overall grade point averages...
"There has been a measurable cultural change in society’s commitment to literary reading," said Gioia. "In a cultural moment when we are hearing nothing but bad news, we have reassuring evidence that the dumbing down of our culture is not inevitable." (Rich, Online)
Perhaps we owe Laura Bushsome credit.
..."Reading at Risk" [showed] that fewer than half of Americans over 18 read novels, short stories, plays or poetry. That survey, based on data gathered in 2002, provoked a debate among academics, publishers and others about why reading was declining. Some argued that it wasn’t, criticizing the study for too narrowly defining reading by focusing on the literary side, and for not explicitly including reading that occurred online.
...Among ethnic groups the latest report found that the proportion of literary reading increased most for what the study classifies as Hispanic Americans, rising to 31.9 percent in 2008 for adults 18 and over, from 26.5 percent in 2002. The highest percentage of literary reading was among whites, at 55.7 percent, up from 51.4 percent in 2002. The rate of literary reading among men 18 and older increased from 37.6 percent in 2002 to 41.9 percent in 2008. The proportion also increased among women, from 55.1 percent in 2002 to 58 percent in 2008.
...The proportion of adults reading some kind of so-called literary work — just over half — is still not as high as it was in 1982 or 1992, and the proportion of adults reading poetry and drama continued to decline. Nevertheless the proportion of overall literary reading increased among virtually all age groups, ethnic and demographic categories since 2002. It increased most dramatically among 18-to-24-year-olds, who had previously shown the most significant declines. (Rich, Fiction)
Gioia said that the decline in book reading might be attributable to a falloff in the reading of nonfiction, although he offered no explicit evidence of that.
Elizabeth Birr Moje, an education professor at the University of Michigan who specializes in literacy, language and culture, said it was impossible to do more than speculate why literary reading rates had increased in the most recent survey. The rise could just as easily be attributed to changes in health care or a need for escape in difficult economic times, she said.
What’s more, Moje added, it was an isolated piece of information. "It’s just a blip," she said. "If you look at trend data, you will always see increases and decreases in people’s literate practices."
(Rich, Fiction)
As a technical tyro, I've never read a book on a device; but like most people, I spend hours every day at my computer. Certainly this counts as reading and writing, but it's not reading.
It is telling that one family interviewed for Online, R U Really Reading?, admits to having few books in their home. One teen "reads books only when forced...[books] go through details that aren't really needed."
Are bound, printed pages destined to become the retronymic "hard-copy books?" When moving, is it worth it to lug all those heavy boxes? To take up valuable living space on shelf after shelf? They gut dusty, fall apart, absorb spills.
But it’s fun to find an old note used as a bookmark in a rediscovered volume. You can lend books to friends, knowing you’ll never see them again. You can leave them on park benches to be picked up by strangers. You can arrange them by author, title, subject. You can pass on to your daughter the fairy tale collections you read as a girl. You can curl up with a blankie and read "Pat the Bunny" to instill in children a love of reading. You cannot read "Pat the Bunny" online.
My cookbooks fall open to my favorite recipes, as if the ubiquitous chocolate smearing wasn’t enough. I have books created by artists that in no way resemble books. My texts from college are highlighted with facts still lodged somewhere in my brain. My much-loved dictionaries, Roget's Thesaurus and "The Elements of Style" are never out of reach.
You can pry my book collection from my cold dead hands.