Americans Read Fewer Books · Slashdot Mirror

Posted by michael on Friday July 9, 2004 @03:01PM from the post-literate-era dept.

DesScorp writes "The National Endowment for the Arts has released a study that shows a decline in the reading of fiction, poetry, and short stories. The study began in 1982, but shows a particularly steep decline from 1992-2002, the first decade of the Age of the Internet. They never seem to draw the conclusion that the Net may have accelerated our turn from this kind of reading, but the timing seems suspicious to me. I know I don't read for pleasure as much as I did years ago because of the time spent on the Net (and in technical books). NPR has a good audio link here for you non-readers; the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a nice article as well." You could also - assuming you read - see the study itself.

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Prices, etc... by Joe+U · 2004-07-09 15:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

Book prices have gone thru the roof in the past 10 years.

Combine that with more Internet use and a 500 channel cable TV system (with a DVR, of course) and it's no wonder I hardly read anymore.

Drop softcover prices down to a sane $4 and hardcover to $12 and we'll see an increase in reading again.