23% of Americans Did Not Read a Single Book Last Year

http://m.theatlantic.com/business/ar...

This cannot end well.
At least we saved some trees I guess =(

Frankly, I'm surprised it's that low.

There were some positives in the article. I guess the readership of children has remained flat over the last 10 years or so (despite their parents and grandparents reading much less). It seems like a double edged sword though because how much of that is because of Harry Potter and the like? What if we don't get another Harry Potter style boom?

And the scarier thing is I can't recall if I have read a book in the last year. I think I have or have at least read significant parts of several books. Plus I know I have read several plays and a few plays over and over because I have performed in them.

Yes, but think of how many Buzzfeed lists we've shared! That's gotta count for something.

I wonder if it counted religious books and if it did, how much higher that number would be for not counting them.

Edwin wrote:

I wonder if it counted religious books and if it did, how much higher that number would be for not counting them.

Also newspapers, magazines, internet articles, scientific journals.... Books are not the only source material for reading.

I blame the twitters.

I suspect 50 Shades made that number much lower than it normally would have been. Twilight and Harry Potter probably lowered the number in their years too. I'd be more curious about the numbers between these series.

What does reading books actually represent in the population? Could it be that part of that 23% doesn't have the time or money to read books? Isn't 77% a pretty good number for readers?

The more you make, the more you read. The more you *can afford* to read.

And it's really hard to go on the web and do much without reading skills. My guess is that this may have more to do with how people spend their free time (and economics) than with reading ability or the like.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Yes, but think of how many Buzzfeed lists we've shared! That's gotta count for something.

10 books you should have read this year - but probably won't!

gewy wrote:

Frankly, I'm surprised it's that low.

That was my thought.

Frankly, given what passes for "books" nowadays, I am not sure that 77% of Americans reading them is anything for which to be greatly proud either.

So even some of the people who are at the lowest level of the literacy scale (according to NAAL studies) are picking up books and reading them. Cool.

nel e nel wrote:
Edwin wrote:

I wonder if it counted religious books and if it did, how much higher that number would be for not counting them.

Also newspapers, magazines, internet articles, scientific journals.... Books are not the only source material for reading.

This.

I read fewer books now than, say, 10 years ago, but I read a helluva lot more words.

Admittedly, many of those words are written by you lot of bloody monkeys, so the signal-to-finger-butt ratio is way down.

Do audiobooks count? Because I don't read "words" anymore, but I consume the hell out of some audiobooks.

Does this count people reading things on the internet? Because, honestly, I don't see the relevance of this study. There's nothing about text being put onto paper that makes it suddenly worth more.

Nevin73 wrote:

Do audiobooks count? Because I don't read "words" anymore, but I consume the hell out of some audiobooks.

Since I'm in the same boat, I was curious too. It sounds like audiobooks count as "books read" for the purpose of those numbers.

I think there's definitely value in things read on the internet, and in that light, the generation growing up with it does a ton of reading. However, there's a pretty big difference between your average internet article and a book in terms of the attention span required to read it, and having to process a line of thought that develops over the course of 200+ pages. That's a skill that the internet usually doesn't help develop.

Chaz wrote:

That's a skill that the internet usually doesn't help develop.

There's absolutely no shortage of books that don't help develop that either.

Valmorian wrote:
Chaz wrote:

That's a skill that the internet usually doesn't help develop.

There's absolutely no shortage of books that don't help develop that either.

Pretty much this 1000x.

Paleocon wrote:
Valmorian wrote:
Chaz wrote:

That's a skill that the internet usually doesn't help develop.

There's absolutely no shortage of books that don't help develop that either.

Pretty much this 1000x.

Absolutely. You're still more likely to find a good book that's 200+ pages than anything on the internet that's that long.

Chaz wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Valmorian wrote:
Chaz wrote:

That's a skill that the internet usually doesn't help develop.

There's absolutely no shortage of books that don't help develop that either.

Pretty much this 1000x.

Absolutely. You're still more likely to find a good book that's 200+ pages than anything on the internet that's that long.

Have you actually walked into a Books-a-Million lately and looked at what is on their best seller tables?

I posted two pictures on my Facebook page a while back from my local Barnes and Noble in North Carolina. One was of the religion section (three rows deep). The other was of the science section (empty floor space and one table with a smattering of children's books).

Given the choice between a population reading thoughtful articles about science and faith based self help books, give me the articles every day of the year.

You honestly think that the people reading the stuff from the bestseller list are reading thoughtful articles about science and faith? I'd imagine those folks are either reading buzzfeed lists or websites featuring a lot of multicolored gifs of crosses and rainbows.

Chaz wrote:

You honestly think that the people reading the stuff from the bestseller list are reading thoughtful articles about science and faith? I'd imagine those folks are either reading buzzfeed lists or websites featuring a lot of multicolored gifs of crosses and rainbows.

Sort of my point.

The idea that reading books -- given the complete dross I see on most bookstore shelves -- is somehow superior to reading other kinds of materials is pretty suspect.

The case can certainly be made for the value of internet articles. However, given the 4000 year history of the published word, arguing that books suck now seems more than a little silly. I have a very depressing picture from B&N of a book by Snooki sharing a shelf with Slyvia Plath, but there was still Slyvia Plath there.

And I, as a moderately educated person, have no idea who Slyvia Plath is, but (unfortunately) I do know who Snooki is. Take that for what it is worth.

Edit: Ah...a poet. That explains why I've never heard of her.

So... Did you google any of her poetry? Or Roethke? Dickinson? Byron? Codrescu? Wordsworth? Key?...

Robear wrote:

So... Did you google any of her poetry? Or Roethke? Dickinson? Byron? Codrescu? Wordsworth? Key?...

Why? I didn't realize reading Plath or these others was the only meaningful way to consume words..

Dr.Ghastly wrote:
Robear wrote:

So... Did you google any of her poetry? Or Roethke? Dickinson? Byron? Codrescu? Wordsworth? Key?...

Why? I didn't realize reading Plath or these others was the only meaningful way to consume words..

And I didn't realize anyone had said that. Funny.

I quickly ran by my local B&N and discovered that Plath's books still exist, along with a few hundred thousand others of all topics and genres and qualities, despite some not having heard of her, so, again, make the case for internet article reading, but doing so by arguing books are crap is like disregarding all music because of teen pop.

Not worth the time.

One of my life's biggest goals is to become a published author. That being said, the current novel is not well designed for the 21st Century. A lot of writers are still stuck in the Dickensonian model of more words the better. I can't tell you how many interesting non-fiction titles I've read in the past couple years that were padded with useless extra facts or involved the author reiterating the same points just so the book would be an acceptable length. I would say the same about fiction - the Game of Thrones series is one of my favorites but what if Martin felt like he could write a good fantasy yarn without droning on for a 1000 pages at a time?

E-books hold a lot of promise but very few authors have really taken advantage of that medium.

Just for sake of argument - Im reading the Hunger Games and it is the perfectly written book for reading in chunks during a lunch break. That is probably one of the reasons that it is so popular, given that most modern Americans probably have at most a half-hour to read books a day.

Books used to be the primary form of speculative or thoughtful content 50 years ago. Percent of people reading books at that point in time represented something significant and good for national literacy and the average intellect of the electorate or people. These days, you can't get by without texting, so everyone has to learn how to read if only to be able to sext with random pick ups and troll people on Facebook.

The prevalence of personal publishing and consumption platforms means that the book symbolizes something different now. A short book purchase on Amazon featuring a trashy romance story about sexy T-rexes and universe-displaced maidens would take no more than a few hours to read, is free to anyone who has internet and a cheap tablet, and probably won't be worth anything more than an afternoon's amusement. Does it say anything if a person has read something like that over the last year? These days, I don't think it's significant.