How depressing

Here is a distressing but unsurprising news flash for you: “US report says young people reading a lot less,” from page one of the Boston Globe. The story reports on a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts, which contains the following nuggets:

• Only 30 percent of 13-year-olds read almost every day.

• Almost half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure.

• The average person between ages 15 and 24 spends 2.5 hours a day watching TV and 7 minutes reading.

This has led to a sharp drop in reading profiency. Again, not surprising.

Interestingly, the study found a correlation between reading for pleasure and other activities, such as voting, political activism, participation in culture and fine arts, charity work and regular exercise. It seems like the bottom line is, reading is good for you! (And fun!)

I guess I should consider myself lucky that when I was little, my parents took me to bookstores at least once a week and bought whatever I wanted (in retrospect, the library would have been a lot more economical, but my parents are like me—they like to own their books :) ).

Also I’m lucky that cell phones, ipods, Blackberries, etc. did not exist when I started my reading habit (not to sound like an old geezer—I’m only 30!). One of the reasons offered for the decline in reading is that people, especially teenagers and college students, have so many electronic gadgets to play with. I abhor the idea of electronic book readers, but maybe they will prove the savior of reading: Books just might seem “cooler” when you can read them on a tiny little screen with flashy colors. How sad.


P.S. I know I haven't posted on my current reading in a while, I did just finish "The Road," which I will blog about later this week... stay tuned!