We find a slightly alarmist press release (there’s apparently ‘a national crisis’) from the National Endowment for the Arts reporting an overall decline of 10 percentage points in literary readers from 1982 to 2002, and that less than half of adults are now reading literature. I’m not sure why anybody’s surprised, least of all the NEA, but this wasn’t news to me. What’s to blame for this decline?
“America can no longer take active and engaged literacy for granted,” according to Gioia. “As more Americans lose this capability, our nation becomes less informed, active, and independent minded. These are not qualities that a free, innovative, or productive society can afford to lose.
“No single factor caused this problem. No single solution can solve it. But it cannot be ignored and must be addressed,” Gioia said.
So, they don’t know or they aren’t saying? I guess they didn’t want to say in the press release, but the study itself (PDF) has plenty of information. While they do say “the decline in reading correlates with increased participation in a variety of electronic media, including the Internet, video games, and portable
digital devices”, they also confess that “It is not clear from the SPPA data how much influence TV watching has on literary reading.”
It’s not all bleak…they do point out that creative writing among Americans is apparently up 30%, though attendance in creative writing classes is down by 2.2 million (way to compare apples to apples there, guys). I suspect that we can thank the Internet for both of those shifts.
Books are suffering the same fate as movies, computer games, music and other entertainment technologies: diversification of the marketplace. A hundred years ago, if you had any money and free time, what were your self-entertainment options: read or play music. Today, leisure time has increased, but the entertainment options have exploded. There are more content creators fighting for a slice of your leisure time than ever before. So, it’s no surprise that we’re reading fewer books or listening to less music.
In related news, 12.7% of all books bought in 2003 were sold over the Web.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Perhaps I missed it somewhere in the report, but I could not find the NEA’s definition of “literature”. The definition is hotly debated by academics. The people surveyed may not identify with the term such as “literature”. Moreover, the growing US population of Hispanic, Asian and African-American persons may come into play. Some of these persons may not readily find relevant “literature” in their local bookstores and libraries. Still others may read works in other languages, and thus not show up in counts of English literature — depending on how the survey defined “literature”. Furthermore, some Hispanic and African-American cultures draw heavily from the oral tradition — spoken stories and songs replace “literature”. I am amazed that the NEA did not consider cultural or class traditions in their report. They might also have considered that the growing population of seniors may have trouble reading small print books…or perhaps now turns to books on tape or video.
Of course, other factors may come into play, but you’d think that the survey would at least look at changes in US demographics.