Interesting article on the dumbing of the United States:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Interesting excerpt:

Reading has declined not only among the poorly educated, according to a report last year by the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 1982, 82 percent of college graduates read novels or poems for pleasure; two decades later, only 67 percent did.

And more than 40 percent of Americans under 44 did not read a single book -- fiction or nonfiction -- over the course of a year.

The proportion of 17-year-olds who read nothing (unless required to do so for school) more than doubled between 1984 and 2004.

This time period, of course, encompasses the rise of personal computers, Web surfing and video games.