In 2007 Kerry Allen collected some scary statistics on reading, including:
- 58% of the adult U.S. population never read a book after leaving school
- 80% of U.S. familes did not buy or read a book last year
(Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop)
Reading for pleasure
By "why we read", I don't mean deeper causal factors like literacy. I'm also not talking about sales data (that's so messy, with the mishmash of pricey hardcovers, cheap paperbacks, ebooks, used books, library books). I'm after the behavioral aspect--do people enjoy reading, and is reading a habit or an occasional effort. Here’s a first cut at what I’ve found. I'd love suggestions for more sources and interpretations.How many books
A 2004 Gallup poll found that the average American, Canadian, or British adult woman read at least one book per month. Quite a few people don't read books at all.
During The Past Year, About How Many Books, Either Hardcover Or Paperback, Did You Read Either All Or Part Of The Way Through? (Average books read. Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, Jan 2005, p 77.)
A 1992 survey (2002 was similar; see below) by the National Endowment for the Arts found that 39% of Americans surveyed had not read a book in a year. 10% of those surveyed read at least 25 books.
Survey of Public Participation in the Arts: 1992. (National Endowment for the Arts.)
How often do we read
A 2004 survey by the U.S. TV industry said the average adult spent 108 hours reading books that year (about 2 hours per week; 1/14 the time spent watching TV).
TV Basics 2004: Consumer Media Usage. (Television Bureau of Advertising, Media Trends Track)
That's the industry estimate. The National Endowment for the Arts ' finding is slightly less dramatic:
literature readers watched an average of 2.7 hours of television each day [985 hours per year], while people who do not read literary works watched an average of 3.1 hours daily [1132 hours per year]. Adults who did not watch TV in a typical day are 48 percent more likely to be frequent readers - consuming from 12 to 49 books each year - than are those who watched one to three hours daily. (Reading at Risk, 2002)The next two surveys contradict the "80% don't read" statistic.
The U.S. Census Long Form asks about leisure activities. Most are occasional activities: many people have gone to a bar at least once this year but fewer go once a week. However, reading has a different pattern: those who read, read often. Many people read twice a week; few people read only once a month. The only other leisure activities exhibiting this pattern are internet use and, presumably, TV watching: these are the big habitual activities.
The "Leisure" categories have changed in the current census form so it's hard to compare. In the 2000 census, 43.2% of adults reported reading for pleasure; 23.8% read at least twice a week.
| Activity | In the last 12 months | Frequency of participation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twice a week | Once a week | Once a month | ||
| Dine out | 51.8% | 10.6% | 13.0% | 5.8% |
| Entertain at home | 39.3% | 3.4% | 5.2% | 8.6% |
| Go to a bar, club | 20.6% | 1.7% | 2.8% | 3.1% |
| Read books | 43.2% | 23.8% | 4.1% | 3.1% |
| Surf the Net | 27.1% | 16.2% | 3.7% | 1.1% |
The National Endowment for the Arts surveys define "literature" as novels, poetry, and plays--excluding nonfiction. They find that women read more literature than men, and the rate of reading is declining steeply. The NEA analysis from 1982-2002 is the clearest statement I've seen of a general decline in reading:
| Any book | Change | Literature* | Change | Listened | Read online | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | 57% | ||||||
| 1992 | 61% | 54% | - 5% | 17% | |||
| 2002 | 57% | - 7% | 47% | -14% | 12% | 9% |
(2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. National Endowment for the Arts, Research Division Report #45, p 19.)
While all demographic groups showed declines in literary reading between 1982 and 2002, the survey shows some are dropping more rapidly than others. The overall rate of decline has accelerated from 5 to 14 percent since 1992.(Reading at Risk. National Endowment for the Arts 2004; analysis of the 2002 survey.)
Women read more literature than men do, but the survey indicates literary reading by both genders is declining. Only slightly more than one-third of adult males now read literature. Reading among women is also declining significantly, but at a slower rate.
Literary reading declined among whites, African Americans and Hispanics. Among ethnic and racial groups surveyed, literary reading decreased most strongly among Hispanic Americans, dropping by 10 percentage points.
By age, the three youngest groups saw the steepest drops, but literary reading declined among all age groups. The rate of decline for the youngest adults, those aged 18 to 24, was 55 percent greater than that of the total adult population.
Over half of teens read; more than adults
The National Center for Education Statistics found that in both 1990 and 2002, 53% of high school sophomores (Grade 10) read for pleasure more than 3 hours per week. (Digest of Education Statistics. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Dec 2004, Table 141.)A 2004 Gallup poll found that 33% of American teens (age 13-17) had read a book for pleasure on the previous day.
Yesterday, Did You: Activities Of Teens, Gallup Youth Survey. (Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, October 2004, p 93.
If over 50% of teenagers enjoy reading, why would 80% of households not read? The British National Literacy Trust says "Research has repeatedly shown that motivation to read decreases with age (McKenna, Ellsworth & Kear, 1995)." Which may fit the 2001 U.S. census finding that only 43% of adults read for pleasure. I can imagine plenty of reasons that adults would read less--starting with all that grown-up crap like crazy work schedules, kids to feed, long commutes, fatigue. But that's sad, if most people are leading a life that wears them out too much to read. And if parents don’t enjoy reading, their kids are unlikely to, as summarized by the National Literacy Trust, p.25.
A 2001 OECD survey found that 59.3% of U.S. teenagers read for enjoyment. (This seems to back up the National Center for Education Statistics.) Teens may not spend many hours a day reading, but they still appear to do more of it than do adults.
| None | At least 30 min. | |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 33.1% | 36.4% |
| Canada | 32.7% | 33.6% |
| Germany | 41.6% | 31.4% |
| Greece | 22.0% | 51.4% |
| Ireland | 33.4% | 35.8% |
| Japan | 55.0% | 27.1% |
| Mexico | 13.6% | 42.7% |
| New Zealand | 29.9% | 33.5% |
| United Kingdom | 29.1% | 35.2% |
| United States | 40.7% | 28.2% |
The internut
Most of my friends read books, but a few (all men, as it happens) read newspapers and internet sites but never open a book. I occasionally meet people who say they don't read at all. What do most people do? Is there a shift from reading fiction for pleasure, to reading "information" (internet news, etc) for pleasure?Say TV, gaming, and surfing are taking over the time that used to be spent on reading books.... Will there be a backswing? We're still in the honeymoon phase of the internet. I know a number of people who've been sucked in to forums and chats, stopped reading/dating and generally turned into moles. But most of them got over it and went back to their reading/dating/usual lives. Will that be the pattern? Or will civilization vanish with a Big Sucking Sound, into the Big Hungry Internet? (Not to set up a false dichotomy: of course you can read fiction on the internet. I mean surfing/chatting instead of reading.)
3 Comments:
Much more scientific than my lump of stats scribbled on Post-Its during a bleary-eyed, late-night internet binge and thrown on the blog in an uncited mess. (I forget someone else reads it occasionally!)
Still pretty distressing statistics. Guess I need to quit grumbling about how inconvenient the timing of the local school board's "read-in for literacy" is and commit to it anyway. Have to start young to get them converted to the Cult of Readers...
Here's one place that states some of the same stats (including the 80 percent of families don't read):
http://www.humorwriters.org/startlingstats.html
That's not where I saw it originally, but it came up first on Google.
Where's the official study to back it up? Don't know. I'm not the only one guilty of poor citation!
Nah, it's strictly pseudo-scientific :) Just because I cited where it came from, doesn't mean I know what it all means. I still haven't figured out if there's a consensus on whether reading is really on the decline. The National Literacy Trust (UK) even has trouble answering that. But whether or not the numbers are lower than in the past, they're still low.
There's a huge difference between people saying they enjoy reading, and spending time reading; and between being literate and enjoying reading. The NLT thinks there's a decline in enjoyment of reading, particularly among boys; and that people reading less with age is more marked. But the stats on book-buying and time spent reading seem to conflict. And leisure-time stats are crazy in general; it's hard to see how people have time to leave the house for work or school, with all the TV/surfing/reading/etc they claim. In that TV industry survey, did the average respondent really spend 1500 hours watching TV? That's close to 30 hours a week! I wonder if that's total hours the TV was *on*, or if they spent all that time sitting there. (Also, I haven't compared that number to a non-industry source.)
I'm not the only one guilty of poor citation!
You made it clear that you didn't have the original references. I didn't mean to finger you as the Evil Non-Citer Who Causes Rumors To Fly! And like I said, some of the numbers you cited seem to line up with the stats I posted. The only stat that I think may not stand up is the 80%.
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