Lately all my reading time is during my commute. That's already too little time, so it's frustrating when I have to leave my book behind so I can carry a sack of groceries.
As a result I'm eyeing e-books, e-reader gadgets, and e-reader software on phones. Can technology help me read more? I'm not sure, but it's worth a try.
Unfortunately the options are overwhelming. I've bought a few e-books in Adobe PDF format, but reading them on the computer hurts my eyes. I like the Sony Reader's non-backlit screen and "page turn" buttons, but I want wireless. I like the Amazon Kindle's wireless but not the fees. Sometimes I don't have a Sony Reader-sized bag with me, just a phone. I don't enjoy reading for long periods on my phone, as the screen is small. I love to read paper, damn it, but paper is heavy. And bulky.
Yes, I have all the symptoms of analysis paralysis.
However, I've found a low-stress way to experiment. My library now offers e-books.
My library, font of technology
The best part of starting with the library's system is that they've already made some choices for me. They provide each book in Adobe and Mobipocket format. I know what Adobe looks like, so that leaves just one kind of reader software to try out. (Limited options can be a
good thing!)
So far I've checked out three books. I can read them on both my computer and my phone. That's important to me. Reading on my phone alone is too irritating; I don't want to read on a phone at home. But do I really want to read on a computer screen at home? I already suspect that what I want is a paper copy at home
and an electronic copy on my phone.
Apparently each book is mine for a few weeks and then "returns itself automatically"--a great feature that stirs my curiosity. I suppose I could stay up till midnight on the due date, watching my e-books return themselves. Will they vanish in a puff of smoke? Or maybe fade off my screen? I suspect they'll simply stop working, but I like the idea.
Tomorrow I'll try out this new system.
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A few weeks ago
I rebutted an NPR
article called "Why women read more than men". Among the article's arguments were:
- Women talk more than men, so women read and write more.
- Women are more empathetic than men, so women read more fiction.
Deborah Cameron persuasively debunks these ideas in her new book,
The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do men and women really speak different languages?The Guardian has published
three lengthy excerpts from the book, and an
excellent review by Steven
Poole.
The current mythology
According to
Janet Shibley Hyde, "the fascination with psychological gender differences has been present from the dawn of formalized psychology around 1879." Cameron has noticed the interest gaining momentum since the early 1990s. She lists several recent titles in self-help:
The NPR article relied heavily on
The Female Brain, which claimed that women talk three times as much as men. The science community
slammed the book (
here's my summary), and the author admits that the statistic is rubbish. Nonetheless, it continues to make headlines.
Cameron debunks
The Female Brain still further,
citing Hyde's
2005 analysis of a number of previous studies. Overall, these studies found little difference between men's and women's use of language:
- "Close to zero" or "small" differences in:
- Reading comprehension, vocabulary, verbal reasoning, speech production, conversational interruption, talkativeness, assertive speech, affiliative speech, and self disclosure.
- "Moderate" differences in:
- Spelling and smiling.
The anti-headline: "Men and women pretty similar, research finds"
I don't doubt that the sexes can be different, nor that differences should be studied. The problem lies in the tendency to extrapolate immutable biological differences from casual social observations.
Poole's review explicates the danger of this approach:
Aspects of the way our society is currently structured are taken to be clues to some basic difference in the nature of men and women, which always turns out to be... a "natural" reason to keep them in lower-status roles.... The Essential Difference... concludes that "people with the female brain", supposedly more empathetic, are better at jobs such as nursing... and the male-brained, supposedly more analytical, make better lawyers. Cameron comments aptly that nurses also need to be analytical and lawyers need people skills: "These categorisations are not based on a dispassionate analysis of the demands made by the two jobs. They are based on the everyday common-sense knowledge that most nurses are women and most lawyers are men."
In fact, as we discussed a few weeks ago, the femininity of empathy is up for dispute. Recent studies indicate that while empathy is related to physical structures in the brain, those structures develop through social conditioning, rather than some innate gender-based attribute.
Gender-based cultural assumptions have proven to be wrong in more measurable spheres. It was once "known" that women weren't physically strong enough to run long distances. But in the 1970s U.S. marathons were officially opened to women, and Title IX required that schools provide men and women with equal access to sports. Since then, the gap between women's and men's marathon times has shrunk dramatically. The point isn't whether women's times will ever be the same as men's. These changes in sports provides great examples of cultural assumptions exaggerating natural differences.
When Mars is Venus
Here's an amusing counter-example from the Times Online review:In the village of Gapun in Papua New Guinea, when a woman is annoyed with her husband, she swears at him for 45 minutes, at the top of her voice....
"You’re a ****ing rubbish man. You hear? Your ****ing ***** is full of maggots. You’re a big ****ing semen *****. Stone balls! ...****ing black *****! You *****ing mother’s ****!"
When the flowers of English womanhood carry on like this... they’re thought to be behaving laddishly. When the housewives of Gapun turn the air blue, however, they are only doing what comes naturally to a woman.... If [the village men] need to get a grievance off their chests, they get their wives to do it for them. In Gapun, women are from Mars, men are from Venus.
Good reads
I've only read half of a friend's copy, and the excerpts. However, I've read enough to be comfortable recommending The Myth of Mars and Venus--especially as I was impressed by Cameron's Verbal Hygiene (Politics of Language) several years ago. Cameron cites a lot of literature, makes her points lucidly, and distinguishes nicely between scientific consensus and cultural assumption. She's also bitingly funny.
Excerpts:
Other interesting reads:
Janet Shibley Hyde, 2005, "The Gender Similarities Hypothesis". American Psychologist.
Steven Poole, 2006, Unspeak: How words become weapons, how weapons become a message, and how that message becomes reality. Grove Press.
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Today on National Public Radio, Eric Weiner explored several hypotheses as to why women read more than men. It's a sadly under-researched article.
The article gets into trouble immediately by summarizing theories on the gender gap. Unfortunately, Weiner relies on a discredited book and several studies that simply examine gender-stereotype-based assumptions, rather than exploring different possibilities.
1. Cognitive psychology hypothesis: Empathy
Cognitive psychologists have found that women are more empathetic than men, and possess a greater emotional range—traits that make fiction more appealing to them.
It's good to investigate hypotheses like this, but the fact that these are the main hypotheses under investigation is pathetic. Just like we "know" women talk more (below), we "know" women are more empathetic. So that's what we study.
2. Neuroscience hypothesis: Empathy
Neuroscientists believe that mirror neurons hold the biological key to empathy.... Some studies have found that women have more sensitive mirror neurons than men. That might explain why women are drawn to works of fiction, which by definition require the reader to empathize with characters.
This study is a little more meaningful, but again seems to be looking for evidence based on a gender assumption. There isn't a lot of neuroscience literature in this area, so it's far from conclusive that this is "the cause". Regardless, I'm glad to see the investigation moving away from cultural assumptions and toward science.
UPDATE: Paul's comment below
links to some additional neuroscience findings. The reaction of the mirror neurons appears to be shaped by socialization! Not only the other way around. So much for biological determinism.
As I said--Weiner jumped the gun,
cherry-picking reporting these studies as meaningful without confirmation from the rest of the literature.
3. Pseudoscience hypothesis: The fidgets
Some experts see the genesis of the "fiction gap" in early childhood. At a young age, girls can sit still for much longer periods of time than boys, says Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain.
"Girls have an easier time with reading or written work, and it's not a stretch to extrapolate [that] to adult life," Brizendine says. Indeed, adult women talk more in social settings and use more words than men, she says.
Tsk tsk, NPR. Brizendine's book was trashed by premier science journal Nature, in an article calling her work "Psychoneuroindoctrinology". The review in Nature says The Female Brain "fails to meet even the most basic standards of scientific accuracy and balance.... The text is rife with 'facts' that do not exist in the supporting references."
In fact, the equally renowned journal Science has published studies demonstrating that there's no measurable gender difference in speech frequency. Brizendine now admits her statements aren't supported by science, and she will delete those passages in future editions.
No mention of the protagonist hypothesis
Weiner doesn't mention the studies that find men are less likely to read books by women, or about women. That finding indicates that the gender gap in reading may be in part due to social factors (how boys are socialized, and what reading is assigned during school), not simply an endemic psychological or biological gender difference.
The Guardian summarizes a study out of Queen Mary College in London:Four out of five men said the last novel they read was by a man, whereas women were almost as likely to have read a book by a male author as a female.... Women, however, often gave several titles. The report said: 'Men who read fiction tend to read fiction by men, while women read fiction by both women and men.
'Consequently, fiction by women remains "special interest", while fiction by men still sets the standard for quality, narrative and style.'
Reading demographics: Blurry view
Weiner ends with a rather sloppy description of reading demographics.Harry Potter made more of an impact on boys' reading habits. Sixty-one percent agreed with the statement "I didn't read books for fun before reading Harry Potter," compared with 41 percent of girls.
That's nice, but what about this article that says they won't KEEP reading once they finish Harry Potter. As I said a while back, that lines up with the studies that find kids read less as they get older. Which is not what Weiner said:Young people, in general, read less than older people, and that does not bode well for books and the people who love them.
Weiner keeps blurring the lines. Those young people aren't the same group as the kids surveyed in the previous paragraph.
Those "older people" who read more are the elderly--they're from a couple generations back. Current generations read a lot as kids, then read less as they become young adults, and still less as adults. It's not that the younger generation are hopeless louts. Something new is happening between childhood and adulthood that decreases how much people read.
All lit is chick lit
I loathe and despise the term "chick lit", so this is the one point Weiner made that I like--and it's opinion, not pseudofact. He points out that as women are the main readers of fiction, one might as well call all literature "chick lit". (I hear pleasant echoes of Gloria Steinem's rant on the term "chick lit".)
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The Associated Press just released a new poll (Aug '07) on American adults' reading habits. Overall, I think the existing surveys I've cited before are higher quality. This one digs deeper into demographic data, but really the National Endowment for the Arts (Reading at Risk) report does better at that too.
One of these polls is not like the others
Some of the surveys I've previously cited focused on literature (fiction, short stories, and poetry). The new AP poll includes nonfiction. The previous surveys I've cited were based on a far larger sample size and used more rigorous methods:
- The Census long form was sent to 17 million households
- The National Endowment for the Arts survey interviewed 17,135 people using a mix of in-person and phone interviews
- The new AP poll only did 1,003 random-number-dialing phone interviews, with a ±3% margin of sampling error.
Some of the new poll's results are in line with the earlier surveys. Others don't seem to fit the pattern. Still others seem a bit over-interpreted in the
AP article. (See
How much do we read? and
Who reads genre fiction?)
How much do we read?
The new AP poll finds that
One in four adults [27%] read no books at all in the past year.
So 73% of the population
did read a book? That's much higher than any of the other surveys have reported. The 2000 Census found that 43% of adults had read a book that year. The 2002 National Endowment for the Arts'
Reading at Risk survey found that 57% of adults read a book that year (47% read fiction). (See
table.)
How many books?
The AP looked at how many books the typical person read. I'm not sure their numbers mean much--comparing them to the Gallup polls, it's pretty clear the number wanders around from year to year, and from poll to poll. And frankly, it's a bad type of question to ask in a survey. Could
you remember exactly how many books you read last year? I couldn't. Only those who read very little
and read a book that made an impression on them are likely to answer accurately.
So having said the numbers are crap, here's what the AP says:
The typical [median] person claimed to have read four books in the last year -- half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.
These values are close to the Gallup Poll's 2005 findings on how many books people had started in the last year. However, Gallup's results vary from year to year: six in 1990, ten in 1999, five in 2005. Now AP says the typical number is four. I'm not sure any of this is trustworthy.
Gender and country
The AP found that those who read books typically read nine books for women and five for men. Eh... I think this style of graph works a bit better because, failing exact numbers, you can do qualitative comparisons:
Average number of books read or started, 2004. Gallup.
(Note that the Gallup graph uses averages, which will be higher than the medians reported in the AP article. Unfortunately they use two different kinds of statistics, which can't really be compared.)
Who reads?
The AP poll saysWho are the 27 percent of people... [who] hadn't read a single book this year? Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women fit that category.
The AP poll also found that the heaviest readers are those with college degrees, and those over age 50. Neither of those findings is controversial. (See my post with statistics on education and reading.)
I think the new AP poll stretches their data too far in defining regional reading patterns:People from the West and Midwest are more likely to have read at least one book in the past year. Southerners who do read, however, tend to read more books, mostly religious books and romance novels, than people from other regions.
The National Endowment for the Arts found that the order went West, Northeast, Midwest, then South. Really, it looks like the top 3 regions are within the poll's margin of error; the best statement may be that the West, Midwest, and Northeast have similar numbers of book readers, while the South lags behind in number of readers. The RWA survey agrees that those who read in the South read a lot of romance.
A few last tidbits from the AP poll:
Who reads
- Whites read more than blacks and Hispanics
- Those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently
- Democrats and liberals typically read... slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives
What do we read
- The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey
- Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half
- One in five read romance novels.
(This agrees with the RWA survey.)
- Every other genre -- including politics, poetry and classical literature -- were [sic] named by fewer than five percent of readers.
- More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography.
Sources
- Alan Fram, Associated Press Writer. August 21, 2007. "One in Four Read No Books Last Year". Chicago Tribune.
- National Endowment for the Arts, 2004. "Reading at Risk", 2002 Survey on Public Participation in the Arts. ("The 2002 SPPA asked respondents if, during the past 12 months, they had read any novels or short stories, plays, or poetry... including popular genres such as mysteries, as well as contemporary and classic literary fiction. No distinctions were drawn on the quality of literary works.")
- Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, Jan 2005, p 77. "During The Past Year, About How Many Books, Either Hardcover Or Paperback, Did You Read Either All Or Part Of The Way Through?"
- U.S. Bureau of Census, 2002. "Statistical Abstract of the U.S." National Data Book, Table 1223, p 753.
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Amazon.com first started selling used books in 2002. It was a huge success. By 2004, 67% of used books sales were online--a higher percentage than any other product category. (Only 12.7% of new books sales were online.)
The Author's Guild urged its members to de-link Amazon in protest, and sent an open letter to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon:
If your aggressive promotion of used book sales becomes popular among Amazon’s customers, this service will cut significantly into sales of new titles, directly harming authors and publishers.
April 9, 2002
Bezos in turn emailed Amazon's used booksellers:
We’ve found that our used books business does not take business away from the sale of new books. In fact, the opposite has happened. Offering customers a lower-priced option causes them to visit our site more frequently, which in turn leads to higher sales of new books while encouraging customers to try authors and genres they may not have otherwise tried. In addition, when a customer sells used books, it gives them a budget to buy more new books.
April 14, 2002
In 2005, a group of economists studied Amazon's sales data to see whether online used book sales were in fact cannibalizing new book sales. The answer was mostly no. Bezos' email appears to be accurate.
If you like numbers
In 2004, only 3% of general-interest book sales were used. In-store used book sales are flat, but online used sales have climbed. Which means that used book sales used to be less than 3% of the book market.
The economic analysis found that of all used book sales on Amazon, only 16% replaced new book purchases. (That's 16% of 3% of total book sales. Half a percent.)The remaining 84% of used book sales apparently would not have occurred at Amazon's new book prices.
In other words, 84% of used book sales represent an increase in readership.
Under status quo pricing, retailers (both new and used) should benefit from the used market, but publishers would lose money--$45.05 million out of publishers' pockets (0.3% of publishers' 2003 gross profits). However, the economists also found that publishers could compensate by raising new book prices slightly. Furthermore, they found that if publishers raised new-book prices by 10%, used book sales would increase by less than 1% (that's 1% of 3% of the book market).
Hal Varian (a big name in economics) is a fan of the economic analysis. He points out that Amazon would lose money if their used book sales displaced too many of their new book sales:According to the researchers' calculations, Amazon earns, on average, $5.29 for a new book and about $2.94 on a used book. If each used sale displaced one new sale, this would be a less profitable proposition for Amazon.
Of course the balance of new/used isn't as critical for Amazon as for publishers and authors, because Amazon makes some money on every book sale, including used. Basically Amazon has the same profit problem as publishers, but to a lesser degree.
The economists' conclusions probably look callous to authors and publishers. They aren't interested in where the losses happen; in their macro-scale view the publishers' losses are more than offset by the consumers' benefits (more competitive pricing, more products to choose from).
One weak point in their analysis is that the losses are accruing entirely to those who produce the books. If the analysis of pricing is accurate, that seems to say that the publishers can make up the loss relatively easily. I would like to see a new analysis in a couple of years, to see whether online used book sales are still climbing and whether publishers have adjusted successfully.
Some interesting author stances
I'm always intrigued with authors' approach to this issue. Rosina Lippi doesn't buy used books while the author's still alive:I don't buy used books -- if the book is in print, and the author is alive, I buy it new. that's a solidarity thing and also just plain common sense. If we are to survive as scribblers, we've got to support each other.
Lippi doesn't quite say "And you shouldn't buy used either" (and she does support libraries), but the issue has come up a few times on her blog. She also tells a story of an evil (and stupid) used book seller who wants to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Then there's this article on Kay Hooper's site, which comes out and says it.
* Her site seems to be down, but it's the Susan Gable guest post that's also on Marisela Morales' site, ending: Our careers, our lines, even our publishers, live and die by the numbers.
So please, where and when you can, save a writer. Buy a new book. We'll all thank you for it. And that way, you'll have more choices of books in the future.
The upshot?
Given how few people read, I tend to think that if the used book market increases readership, it's hard to see that as a bad thing. As I said, I'd like to see another study in the next few years, on whether:- online used book sales are still climbing, and
- publishers have adjusted successfully
If some future study demonstrated that online used book sales were seriously--and unfixably--detrimental to authors and publishers, and thus to readers, I might rethink the nuances of my relationships with new and used books. But I'm not inclined to condemn the secondary market in books, regardless of its downstream effects.
A side note--there's some funny stuff in these debates over buying hardcovers and "supporting authors".
Sources
Anindya Ghose, Michael D Smith, and Rahul Telang, Sep 2005, "Internet Exchanges for Used Books: An Empirical Analysis of Product Cannibalization and Welfare Impact". Social Science Research Network.
M.J. Rose, 16 April 2002, "Authors Question Author's Guild". Wired.
Hal R Varian, 28 Jul 2005, "Reading Between the Lines of Used Book Sales". The New York Times.
Edward Wyatt, 29 Sep 2005, "Internet Grows as Factor in Used-Book Business". The New York Times.
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The
NY Times says Harry Potter can't save the world singlehanded: reading for fun
continues to drop significantly as children get older.... One Harry Potter novel every few years is not enough to reverse the decline in reading.
This goes back to
adults not reading. Great books aren't enough; studies show that if adults don't read, kids don't read.
"Unless there's... an enthusiastic adult saying, 'Here's the next one' — it's not going to happen," said Nancie Atwell, the author of The Reading Zone.
After Harry Potter
All is not lost. 3/4 of Harry Potter readers are "interested in reading other books":
Fifth grade boys shouted with enthusiasm for the "Cirque du Freak" series, about a boy who becomes entangled with a vampire.
Parents? Teachers? These young adult and children's books might tempt a Harry Potter reader. You'd enjoy them too--my parents did.
Mary Stewart
-
A Walk in Wolf WoodTwo children go back in time to rescue a friendly werewolf.
-
The Little BroomstickA girl and a cat join a school for young magicians.
Susan Cooper-
The Dark Is Rising seriesGreat characters, good/evil, coming of age/into power, and Arthurian legend tie-in. A
film version of The Dark is Rising is due out in October.
Alan Garner-
The Weirdstone of BrisingamenWonderful myth-based children's story
Gerald Durrell-
The Talking ParcelChildren and a parrot try to save the magical land of Mythologia from marauding Cockatrices.
-
My Family and Other AnimalsHis animal/travel books are wonderful.
L Frank Baum
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Lucy Boston
- the Green Knowe books
Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Everyone knows The Secret Garden
- What about The Lost Prince
Roald Dahl
- James and the Giant Peach
Madeleine L'Engle
- A Wrinkle in Time series
Andre Maurois
- Fattypuffs and Thinifers
A magical land divided between two countries that don't get along.
Norton Juster
- The Phantom Tollbooth
A pun-filled book about a war between words and numbers.
Robin McKinley
- Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
- The Blue Sword
Jane Yolen
- Wizard's Hall
One of JK Rowling's influences
Beverly Nichols
- The Stream That Stood Still
For younger kids:
JP Martin
- Uncle
Sheer silliness. An elephant who lives in a castle.
Tove Jansson
- the Moomin books
James Howe
- Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery
For teens:
Salman Rushdie
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories
A screwed-up fairytale
Ann Maxwell
- Fire Dancer series
- Timeshadow Rider
TH White
- The Sword in the Stone
Mark Twain
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Fictionalized mythologies:
Roger Lancelyn Green
- Robin Hood
- King Arthur
- Tales of the Greek Heroes
- Tales of Ancient Egypt
- The Tale of Troy
Unfortunately, I bet my list doesn't address this:Neema Avashia... said it was rare for the Harry Potter series to draw reluctant readers to books.... "Harry Potter isn’t really where my kids are coming from." She noted that her class is 85 percent nonwhite....
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Everyone. Doh!
There are some good studies on U.S. readership. I was surprised to see that similar percentages of women and men read sci fi (28% and 31%), and that 10% of men read romance. More education goes hand in hand with higher likelihood of reading for pleasure, in any genre. The West and Northeast read a lot in general, but the Northeast doesn't read much romance. The South reads the least overall, but reads the most romance.
Percentage of U.S. adults who read all fiction, science fiction, and romance
| Read fiction1 | Read sci fi2 | Read romance3
|
|---|
| All | 47% | 30% | 22%
|
|---|
| Women | 55% | 28% | 34%
|
| Men | 38% | 31% | 10%
|
Education
|
|---|
| Grad school | 74% | 35% | 49%
|
| College grads | 63% | 35% | 56%
|
| Some college | 53% | | 27%
|
| High sch. grads | 38% | 29% | 22%
|
| Some high sch. | 23% | 23% | 15%
|
Region
|
|---|
| West | 51% | | 27%
|
| Northeast | 50% | | 13%
|
| Midwest | 47% | | 26%
|
| South | 42% | | 29%
|
Less reading, more genre
The number of reading adults is shrinking, particularly in fiction, but romance looks healthy.
Genre crossover
The RWA surveys find that 18% of romance readers like paranormal themes and 14% like futuristic settings. I'm sure many publishers are watching paranormal romance as a gateway drug between genres.
I partly agree with the speculation that romance readers like paranormals for the "alpha hero" vampires, werewolves, etc, that may be harder to find in romance these days. Another explanation is the NSF finding that 41% of Americans believe ESP is "scientific", and 30% believe UFOs have landed :)
I'm not a UFO spotter, but sometimes a paranormal romance hits the spot, combining character-driven stories with some extra social or speculative dimension. I also enjoy the edginess and lively plotting. Some of that is the kick-ass heroines, but some is about the writing and the subject matter.
On the other hand, I don't get excited about books too far from "reality" (e.g. full of dragons or crazy-ass technology). I'm with Janet Stemwedel on Ethics and Science: "It makes it easier to get involved in the story if you can imagine yourself in that world -- or if you can see a trajectory by which your world could become that world."
Like Nora Roberts--I don't enjoy her straight-up romances, but her JD Robb futuristic romantic suspense series hooked me. I especially like that her In Death books are in the near future, with only a couple of fundamental societal changes.
I've read more sci fi/fantasy/horror in the last few months than since I was a pre-teen. I don't care for all of it. But I did enjoy some of the authors in the Best New Paranormal Romance anthology (mostly NOT romance), and I've liked Kelley Armstrong's werewolf books (quasi-romance) and Kim Harrison's series (not romance), and even Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (urban fantasy). So far, many of the actual "paranormal romances" aren't hitting the right note for me, but they've got me trying new genres, so I'm happy.
Explosion of fanfic?
The NEA study finds thatContrary to the overall decline in literary reading, the number of people doing creative writing increased by 30 percent, from 11 million in 1982 to more than 14 million in 2002 [especially among 18- to 24-year-olds]. However, the number of people who reported having taken a creative writing class or lesson decreased by 2.2 million during the same time period. (p.18-22)
I suspect a lot of this increase is fanfic related to TV watching, but there's also an increase in published authors. Back to last week's post on reading, is enjoyment of writing a good sign for enjoyment of reading? I don't know.
1 Reading at Risk, 2004. National Endowment for the Arts, 2002 Survey on Public Participation in the Arts. ("The 2002 SPPA asked respondents if, during the past 12 months, they had read any novels or short stories, plays, or poetry... including popular genres such as mysteries, as well as contemporary and classic literary fiction. No distinctions were drawn on the quality of literary works.")
2 Science and Engineering Indicators, 2002. National Science Foundation, Survey of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science. (Includes sci fi books and magazines.)
3 Market Research Study on Romance Readers, 2005. Romance Writers of America. (Publisher's Weekly recently discussed how unusual such detailed info is. Bronwyn Clarke's preliminary survey on romance readership provides additional data. It's a voluntary internet survey, not a random survey, but it's already clear that her data will show similarly high educational levels among romance readers.)
Back to Table
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Kerry Allen collected some scary statistics [Update: found the source! It's the Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop], 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
I remembered Kerry's stats when I read
in the AJC "At least women read [... even if it's romance]". I think the "at least X reads" statement is founded in the same fear that
people don't read any more. I see that concern expressed regularly and it worries me too; I also wonder why it's happening. (Reading is the Grail! I must proselytize!)
By "why", 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 some of 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.
Adult participation in selected leisure activities: 2001.
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%
|
Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 2002. (U.S. Bureau of Census. National Data Book, Table 1223, p 753.)
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:U.S. Adult Population Reading Literature
| Any book | Change | Literature* | Change | Listened | Read online
|
|---|
| 1982 | | | 57% | | | |
|
|---|
| 1992 | 61% | | 54% | - 5% | 17% |
|
|---|
| 2002 | 57% | - 7% | 47% | -14% | 12% | 9%
|
|---|
*Literature includes novels, poetry, and plays; excludes nonfiction
(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.
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.
(Reading at Risk. National Endowment for the Arts 2004; analysis of the 2002 survey.)
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.
This 2001 OECD survey found that 59.3% of U.S. teenagers read for enjoyment.
Time Students Usually Spend Each Day Reading For Enjoyment (Based on students' self-reports)
| 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%
|
(Knowledge and Skills for Life. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2001, Table 5.3, p 280.)
The internuts
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.)
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