Interesting article on the dumbing of the United States:

[jeffreyab]

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.

Comments

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the conclusion is valid from the facts. The fact is that there are many more alternatives of delivering information from content owners to content users. The fact that people don't read hardcopy print books doesn't mean they are reading less.

Other recent studies show that people are watching a lot less television doesn't mean they are getting less content, it just means they are getting content (including some television programs) through other channels.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

I think it does mean they are changing the way they read.

With a book you usually read from front to back in a linear fashion.

On the net you can jump around and follow a thought in a nonlinear fashion.

Video games are the same way they do not read exactly the same the next time you play them, the good ones vary quite a bit.