Who reads?

According to a July 2004 article in the “News Room” of the National Endowment for the Arts, Fewer Than Half of American Adults Now Read Literature. The article cites statistics from Reading At Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. This 60-page report was created using data collected from a sample of 17,000 adults by the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 2002, at the request of the National Endowment for the Arts. Much of the blame for the documented decrease in the quantity of our literary reading over the past 20 years is placed on television and lower levels of education. The report defines literary reading as novels or short stories, plays, and poetry, and it makes no distinction as to the quality of the literary works.

Three points in the Reading At Risk report worry me most, as a writer hoping to sell my work:

1) The 10% decline in literary reading means there are 20 million less potential readers.

2) Only the growth in total U.S. population of nearly 40 million adults between 1982 and 2002 has kept the number of literary readers flat at 96 million, while the percentage of the U.S. population reading any books decreased by -7% over the last decade of the study (1992-2002).

3) The rate in decline of literary reading is accelerating.

Curiously, at the same time there’s been a decline in literary reading, America has seen an increase in the number of creative writers by some 30% between 1982 and 2002. Could it be that as we write more we read less? How can we improve as writers if we don’t read?

The greatest increase I experienced in my reading time was when I had a long commute and rode in a vanpool. On nearly every work day, during those five-and-a-half years, I spent at least one additional hour reading, during my ride home. The greatest decrease in my reading time came about when I gained Internet access at home. Granted, much of my time online is spent reading, but it’s not typically literary reading.

As a side issue, I’ve noticed a greater need to sift through online material to get to the quality of reading material I can find in print, and that is sadly not saying much, because the quality of printed material has declined, sending many booksellers, in the U.K. at least, to the backlist.

Do we fit our reading in only where it’s convenient, these days, and have far too much other input to claim our attention? Perhaps television, computers, longer work hours and other increased demands on our time are helping to create a less literary culture. I’m now determined to take a closer look at the amount of time I spend reading literature, and to choose more carefully what I read.