A few weeks ago at the Macworld 2008 Conference & Expo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave a testy reply to a question about Amazon Kindle, a new wireless, electronic book reader from Internet heavyweight Amazon.com:

"'It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore,' he said. "Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore.'"

40%? We'll not exactly. Jobs was referring to statistics compiled by the Census Bureau and the National Endowment for the Arts, whose surveys have queried thousands of Americans questions about their reading habits. A recent article in The New Yorker, "Twilight of the Books," provides a summary of the results:

"In 1982, 56.9 per cent of Americans had read a work of creative literature in the previous twelve months. The proportion fell to fifty-four per cent in 1992, and to 46.7 per cent in 2002."

So, it's not as bad as Jobs made it out to be, but his point still stands: fewer people are reading, and their reading less often when they do. And that's bad news, according to Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, who wrote in a preface ( PDF, 820K) to the recently released reading study, "To Read or Not to Read":

"Although there has been measurable progress in recent years in reading ability at the elementary school level, all progress appears to halt as children enter their teenage years. There is a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Most alarming, both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates. These negative trends have more than literary importance. As this report makes clear, the declines have demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications...

"To Read or Not To Read is not an elegy for the bygone days of print culture, but instead is a call to action -- not only for parents, teachers, librarians, writers, and publishers, but also for politicians, business leaders, economists, and social activists. The general decline in reading is not merely a cultural issue, though it has enormous consequences for literature and the other arts. It is a serious national problem. If, at the current pace, America continues to lose the habit of regular reading, the nation will suffer substantial economic, social, and civic setbacks."

Sadly, Mr. Gioia's report is long on prognosis but short on prescription. Still, Americans might find some solace for their ills in an unlikely place: Japan, where "cell phone novels" are filling up the Japan's best-seller list. Noticing this trend, an editorial at Computerworld wonders if "mobile phones are our last hope for literacy."

At NEA, we have our own prescription, and it wears a floppy, red and white striped stovepipe hat.

-- Joe Hammond

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