Book News: Teenagers Don’t Read
October 22nd, 2008SHOCKING NEWS!!! TEENAGERS DON’T READ FOR FUN!! From The Chicago Tribune:
The percent of 17-year-olds who do not read for pleasure has doubled in the past 20 years, according to a recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts. Just 43 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds said they read literature in 2002, continuing a decline that began two decades earlier.
I guess that’s no surprise…but what does “read for pleasure” really mean?
“We’re talking [about reading] a play, short story, novel or poem in the last 12 months. . . . It’s a low bar. We’re not even saying you had to complete the book,” said Sunil Iyengar, the group’s director of research and analysis.
Oh. That’s pretty bad. That’s REALLY bad. I mean…you would think you would be on the internet and read a short poem that came up on their Yahoo! homepage or something like that!
One question I do have about this study is…why 2002? That was six years ago! Heck that was so long ago that the Cincinnati Bengals started the season 0-7!
Oh.
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October 22nd, 2008 at 8:36 am
That makes me really sad, but I wonder if the number has gone back up in the last 6 years due the increased number of books & series directed at teens. Stephenie Meyer & Christopher Paolini come to mind, and there are many more.
But really,getting 43% of teens to read isn’t that bad when I think about the percentage of adults I know who read for pleasure.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
My question: does this writer have a control…for instance, what the percentage of teen reading was in 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992.