Reading statistics. Very scary.
from boingboing.net
Collection of publishing industry statistics
Dan Poynter collects many statistics related to the publishing industry, from a myriad of sources. I don’t have any sense of the relative credibility of each of these pictures — some appear anaecdotal, others based on reliable sampling methods. They make for fascinating reading in any event.
One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
42% of college graduates never read another book.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
Update: Ross sez, “I saw this list on PZ Meyers’s blog Pharyngula a few months back and he basically retracted it.”
Update 2: Wired Magazine editor and author of The Long Tail Chris Anderson sez, “I was surprised by those book stats too, and dug around. This NEA report seems to have done the most reliable surveys and suggest that while book reading is in decline it’s not as bad as the numbers in your original post.”
Bring on the comments
Saturday, July 8 12:47 pm
We’ve been at the library every week since summer started. We are doing our part to change thses horrible statistics!
Saturday, July 8 9:57 pm
Whoa.
There are few things that I could find on the internet these days that would shock me. That was one of them.
Saturday, July 8 10:18 pm
Scared…
I’m not sure what frightened me more tonight - my horrible poker playing or reading these statistics on Jason’s blog.
……
Saturday, July 8 10:57 pm
i’m about to make every one of you think even less of me…
why is reading books so important? it’s just a means of communication, and not a very efficient one at that. reading books doesn’t prove that you’re smart or make you smart. sure, smart and/or educated people tend to read books more than dumb or uneducated people, but i think that’s more nurture than nature.
books are no different from movies, television, comics, web sites, opera, poetry, or even conversation. why do they have this prestige about them? why are they held in such high regard as a marker of our culture’s intelligence?
every piece of content has a method of communication best suited to its nature. there are only two content types best suited to books: long form literature and historical anthologies (and even the later is debatable). these are not needed to feed the mind of an educated, intelligent, productive, compassionate, and otherwise fruitful member of society.
besides, isn’t it better (and better for society) to be wise than intelligent?
Sunday, July 9 7:47 am
Wisdom tells me I need to be informed, keep learning and I need to exercise my brain, reading is a great way to do this. Reading is not all about intelligence. In addition to increased intelligence it allows for greater participation in “society” and your community. My children need to learn in other ways than watching tv and the internet, although there is plenty to be learned reading on the internet. They need to have ways to entertain themselves other than electronics. Why do you read to Joey? IMO the thinking you have is exactly why our kids are so far behind many other countries in many ways.
Sunday, July 9 8:37 am
this is about books though, not reading. the statistics are specifically about books. i’m fine with reading, but like i said before, books aren’t the best way to communicate most of the information which allows you to participate in society. those are editorials, news, blogs, “townhall” style debates and discussions, documentories, and history. only part of one of these things (long form, in depth history) is content best served by a book. books take a minimum of six months to write, publish, and put on the store shelves, and that’s with a known author who’s profitably written before. far from the most current information. how many of you have read a historical anthology recently?
i read to both my kids because i want them to learn to read and read well, but i also try to teach them to love, care for others, and be self-sacreficing. it’s much better to be good than smart. if you teach a child to read and be informed, their knowledge will grow into hate for the ignorant. if you teach a child to be compassionate, their love for others will lead them to being informed.
reading is important (until we come up with a more efficient way of communicating specific content rapidly), but reading books is not.
Sunday, July 9 10:29 am
Perhaps FOR YOU they may not be the best way to communicate some types of information, but that isn’t necessarily the case for everyone.
IF it is true that they are a generally less effective means of communication for certain types of information (which may be true for the majority of the current population), I would suggest that perhaps one of the reasons is that we (as a society) have grown accustomed to not reading them, NOT because they are inherently poor communication tools. History would tell us otherwise on that count.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that books should be the single source of information that we take in, at the exclusion of other forms of media.
I also certainly don’t think that promoting the value of reading in any way takes away from the value of loving, caring for others, etc, etc. They’re by no means mutually exclusive. You can teach a child to be both well read and compassionate, and there’s nothing contradictory about that at all.
Sunday, July 9 10:53 am
Ok, so snuggle up and read a computer screen to Johanna next time it’s bedtime. I’m sure she will love it. When you see children grow to love books it is an amazing thing. My kids save their money to buy books and look forward to our weekly library trips. I would much rather that than so many other things. I completely disagree with you about this.
Sunday, July 9 10:58 am
guides are another thing that books are good for.
what content types do you feel are best suited to the book media? did you read the list of content types and think of the reason i might have mentioned those things specifically? it’s not a matter of personal taste. most of those types have a certain timeliness or natural response necessary which modern technology has afforded our society. history simply didn’t have a better means of effective communication (or rather, diistribution).
please revisit my previous comments and read them for the points i’m trying to make instead of trying to find fault in my “logic.” my central point (or question which remains unanswered) is this: why is a lack of book consumption a sign that “america is in trouble?” why are books held in a higher regard than other means of communication? the truth is there is no reason, except that smart people like them and for some reason smart people have decided and convinced everyone that whatever smart people do, even if it’s a matter of personal taste, is “better.”
the compassion thing was in response to martha’s comment about how we fair when compared to people in other countries. i think our senses of autonomy and self-importance are far more damaging to our global standings than our rankings in standardized tests.
Sunday, July 9 12:01 pm
The original post never said anything about being smart, or smart people reading books. There was never any mention of people who read books are more or less compassionate.
And, if you go to the post this came from the statistics were retracted as unsubstantiated.
Sunday, July 9 12:09 pm
Reading “a book” is a meditative, calming, mentally engaging activity for me. Reading “a blog, or an article in a magazine” barely comes close. The depth of the book reading experience in time spent digesting it and the length of the stories told make it unique. I don’t like reading e-books on a screen, therefore the book still wins for the most practical vehicle for more lengthy reading experiences. (until the Sony Eink book thing comes out http://www.eink.com/index.html).
I love movies, but the passiveness the viewer experiences when watching a movie or a TV Show limits the viewer’s active involvement. Reading a book you must “imagine� much more. You cannot be mentally checked out and read a book, although with TV this is quite easy to do.
I hardly think that “the sense of autonomy and self-importance� that Nathan is attributing to reading books is accurate. These things can just as easily be attributed to driving giant SUVs and setting up home theaters in our homes. Think about it.
Reading a book is a good antidote to the “ADD feeding� forms of entertainment in our culture. Focusing on a single task and seeing it to completion is becoming a rare thing in our society. The TIME Magazine article on this was eye-opening: http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1174696,00.html
While I don’t feel particularly smart while reading books, I guess it really depends on what you are reading. Although when I read Noam Chomsky I do feel smart and even momentarily superior, but it fades quickly, as my reading retention skills are lacking. A bit ironic considering that I love to read “books� as much as I do.
Sunday, July 9 12:13 pm
Quite a good discussion I must say from a post with some questionable facts. Regardless of the accuracy of these numbers, I believe this is a real trend. Although there are tons of Left Behind and DaVinci Code books sold so it’s not just smart people reading.
Sunday, July 9 12:27 pm
First off, with a child on the way, I will be reading to and taking Pierson to the library mainly because my parents didn’t and I didn’t become a READER. And by READER I mean any media not just books.
I’m glad I know how to read but an avid book reader I’m NOT. However I am very interested in being informed and smart. BUT my ways of staying informed and smart do not always include books, on the contrary the last book I actually finished (cover to cover) was Blue like Jazz and that was over a year ago. I read it not to be more educated but to help me in some ways learn to be more compassionate. At least that’s what I got out of the book.
This is how I see it, books have their place but for me personally if I want to know more about a person, place, idea, etc. The first I think about is NOT running off to the library to check out six 400 pages books about it, I research and LEARN about it online. A book is a last resort. There have been a few incidents were a book was definitely the only way to grasp a concept. That was my tole painting fancy. Now I have 6-8 books in my library illustrating the proper brush stroke patterns. Jason and I just finished a documentary on Charles Bukowski, I don’t plan on picking up his books but have read some of his poetry ONLINE. Hehhehhe
Here are some interesting stats, there are a bit old…I’m wondering if this boingboing article’s stats included ebooks? hmmmmm??
What genres/categories are people buying?
55% Popular fiction
10% Religious nonfiction
9% Cooking/Crafts
–2001 Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing by the Book Industry Study Group,
eBook sales increased 1,442% in January 2003 over January 2002.
–Publishers weekly, March 24, 2003
Sunday, July 9 1:50 pm
I read 100-150 books a year, more than anyone else I know. I am a book whore. If it has words strung together into sentences and sentences strung together into a story or idea, sign me up. I’m not a snob…even if it sucks, I will read it, as long as I get to smell its paper and ink, run my fingers along the spine, use the power of my outer and inner eyes to resurrect the people, places, objects and ideas which lie waiting to live again inside its pages, and imagine the journey this book has taken to come to me.
Because books themselves have stories: their conception as a tickle in the pants of their author’s thoughts; the contractions of inspiration and desolation which are the pangs of their birth onto paper or computer screen; their growth and development under the guidance of an editor; their adolescence, in which they are transformed into grown-up book format in the hands of a designer, printer and binder; and ultimately their adulthood, in which they are lauded, reviled or ignored on the strength or weakness of their content. The best books are the ones whose stories bump up against other stories, setting off chemical reactions that change everything around them.
And in the end, it’s stories that matter: our own and those of other people, and the process of trying to understand those stories within the larger Story of life and God and other important stuff. Some stories cannot be told well except in book form, just like some stories are best told through film or song or comic book or blog. All these other mediums have their own stories, too, and they are worth celebrating. But they are different stories than that of a book, and can never replace the at once tangible and transcendent experience of reading one.
Sunday, July 9 6:53 pm
[...] Another copy and past from Jason’s original post on scary stats. [...]
Sunday, July 9 6:53 pm
I agree that BOOKS are regarded too high, almost as if they are the great tool of knowledge. In the past, books were the mainstay for increasing knowledge, fair perceptions of life and the world. Now it’s different and with many new media streams people can be very knowledgeable, still increase imagination and find avenues of philosophy without even touching a paper book.
Similar to what Nathan said, smart people have convinced the majority that books are for smart people and if you want to be smart you do what smart people do, which is read books. I really don’t see smart people reading because they’ve decided it’s the smart thing to do, I see them reading books because most are introverts and that’s a way of expression. Now I am generalizing a lot and I’m assuming that smart people are smart not because they’ve read a few books but rather they’re smart from the begining. Because it can’t mean that if I read Chomsky (never had) my scope logic is comparable to a genius.
Here’s where I flip-flop a lot.
As I said there are a lot of media streams rather then just books and IMHO these new inlets are ruining us. Since most aren’t calming and thought provoking we turn into fast passed media whores. TV, film, mags, music and the web I read only makes me only knowledgeable in the present rather then the future or the past; decreasing thought and imagination.
Unless we can consciously be aware of the numbing effects of this new media and are retroactively increasing thought through these forms we’ve essentially created a worse replacement to the books that brought us here in the first place.
So, I’m for books but personally I just can’t bring myself to complete a book maybe it’s because of childhood and just in case that’s why I’m going to take an effort in reading to Avery (or making sure Sara does) and limiting mind-numbing media from her.
My other problem; I’ve become a whore to tech, since it’s my hobby I want to broaden myself by reading a lot on the internet but the scary thing, I don’t see an end in sight. With no point of reflection, contemplation and thought in order to create something of my own it’s useless. And IMHO that’s true knowledge, when you’ve created or solved something for others that’s beneficial to all.
Sunday, July 9 6:56 pm
I’d also like to point out the other great void books fill, grammar. As you can tell by the way I write I don’t read a lot of books.
Sunday, July 9 7:01 pm
i don’t have any problem with books. everyone seems to be completely missing my point, and i don’t understand how to make it any clearer. the compassion thing has nothing to do with books, i was simply responding to martha’s tangent. so, can someone explain to me why books are better than any other form of communication?
opera also flexs the mind and helps with childhood development. it’s probably safe to say that 80% of americans have never heard an opera in their life. no one complains about that, but when books are being neglected, it’s “scary.”
i like books. reading is good. books are no more important than any other means of communication.
Sunday, July 9 9:27 pm
I don’t think I’m missing your point at all, Nathan. Your previous comments indicated to me that you think of books as a means of gathering information, that you think they are no better (maybe worse) at doing so than other media, and that smart people have somehow swindled the general population into believing books are, in fact, the “high art” medium of gathering information.
But for me, the experience of reading a book is about much more than information acquisition, which I tried to convey in my overwrought and over-the-top earlier comment. I read books to learn about Life, and for the extraordinarily pleasurable experience of reading a book. If I happen to pick up a few tidbits of info about string theory or toll painting along the way, all the better. Books aren’t inherently better than other media, but I think that they ARE better for telling certain stories than other media, and that the experience of reading a book is different (not necessarily better) than the experience of other media.
Not all readers are snooty a–holes, as you seem to imply. (I’m a blog junkie, film addict and comic bookaholic…to me it’s all good.) Most of us who love books love them for themselves, not some snobby b.s. IDEA of them.
Sunday, July 9 10:29 pm
i don’t think bookaholics are snotty a-holes. i didn’t want to correct him, but i guess i should…jason misrepresented my quote “the sense of autonomy and self-importance.â€? i was referring to the present tense american condition in general, not to book readers. i think that condition puts us much farther behind other countries than our lack of book consumption, countering martha’s statement to the contrary.
it should also be noted that i don’t drive an suv or have a home theater system for this very reason. well, i have surround sound…if a $50 system purchased at k-mart counts.
also, i read between 3-5 books a day…although most are under 24 pages long.
Sunday, July 9 10:32 pm
you’re right about my other comments…although i did say that books are good for long form literature. nobody wants to read out of the silent planet on a computer screen. i’m definitely down with the asthetic of reading a book, i just don’t see any inherant value that would be “scary” if most people missed out on it.
Sunday, July 9 10:53 pm
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that books are categorically “better” than other forms of communication, I think most of the responses after your initial comment were just debating two of your initial statements in which you stated that “books are no different from [list of other stuff]” and “there are only two content types best suited to books”.
To answer your main question about why books are better than any other form of communication, I’d start by saying that I don’t necessarily think that’s always the case, depending on how you define “better”. As you stated there are different methods of communication that could (in certain circumstances and for some people) be more effective at conveying a particular idea or piece of information, IF that is the only goal.
I say “if” because a huge part of the value of reading books does not strictly come from the raw information that one can glean, as if it were simply a means to an end - the end being to cram information into your brain.
The very experience of reading (as Jason pointed out - love the cracks about Left Behind and the DaVinci Code BTW) is a mental exercise that “movies, television, comics, web sites, opera, poetry, or even conversation” do not provide you with, even though all of those things can be valuable as well. Whether it’s the expanding of the limits of imagination, or the struggle to comprehend and discover things in the arena of your mind as opposed to being spoon fed with a more “effective” method of communication, there is something about reading a book that is very different from all of the above mentioned activities.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against having and using better vehicles for learning when they are available, but I’m just saying that I DO think there is something that you gain in the experience of reading that is not present in other methods of communication.
In addition to the mental experience that more “easy” methods bypass, there are also many other tangential benefits that reading books provides that more simple communication styles are either deficient in or lack completely. One big one is the expanding of vocabulary, and another is the ability to write well - both of which naturally grow as a positive side effect of reading a lot of books. Sure, reading other things could have a similar effect, but I doubt whether it would be to the same degree.
Another is what I call “learning to learn”, where a child (or adult for that matter) is able to educate themselves about something. Again, this isn’t strictly about books, but more about the general opinion that the easiest way for someone to learn something is always the best. (Not saying that you’re necessarily saying that, but it’s a common theme that I’ve seen elsewhere before.)
For kids especially, if you always try to find and play to the method of communication that is most effective for them, they will inevitably become overly dependent on whatever that form is, and will find it increasingly difficult to learn things on their own, when it is not neatly packaged and presented to them in that fashion, which they will surely not always be able to count on in the real world.
Conversely, if they have learned how to dig for what they need to know, and also learned how to take that knowledge in and absorb it, whatever the source material may be, they will be in a much better position both to learn and to think independently, in my opinion.
Monday, July 10 6:52 am
i see.
Monday, July 10 10:33 am
This has to be one of the best threads i’ve read in awhile. It’s not often that I read comments that are well constructed and communicate each point so well. And especially not 23 of them.
Has anyone given any thought to the development of the electronic book reader as a replacement to the paper bound book?
Monday, July 10 11:21 am
Hmm, coming late to the party, again.
3 thoughts -
It’s been interesting to me that the bible is a written document. Perhaps a book has been the best way to span differing technologies, time and cultures for a ” story ” to be told.
We all read and like to read books in our family. We have had fun times reading to the kids.
The computer has moved in - both gkids like sesame street.com and we play ” elmo ” and other games on the site. It is a similiar time to reading with them.
Tuesday, July 11 11:24 am
Thinking more about this- the printing industry in general has been beat down since the early ’90s. My friend went to work for a $ 100 Million dollar (in sales per year) tech book printer and they went out of business. It took two years from when MS put their documentation on the cd. Many companies followed MS. This trend has been going on for awhile.
Tuesday, July 11 2:26 pm
that’s because digital reference (besides guides) beats out physical material 90% of the time. the other 10% is dominated by hands on training. sure, that hands on portion (mostly just learning the syntax and how to use an api) can be covered in book form, but i don’t think even jaredb curls up with a java book at night.
Tuesday, July 11 3:11 pm
Ha ha, you would be wrong!
Tuesday, July 11 4:47 pm
*shutters*
Tuesday, July 11 11:46 pm
That was funny. Some of us do actually LIKE reading, though, even technical books. I know it’s “weird”…
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