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The Harry Potter Effect
THE HARRY POTTER EFFECT....Via Dan Drezner, the NEA has released its latest survey of reading habits, and the news is good. Fiction reading among young adults is way up, and overall reading is up too. More than 50% of adults read a piece of literature last year. Huzzah!
The highest rate of reading is among 55-64 year-olds. Poetry reading continued to decline: only 8% of adults read a poem last year, compared to 12% in 2002. And in other unsurprising news, internet reading is concentrated among the young. About half of 18-44 year-olds read an article or essay online last year, with the number plummeting quickly above that. Less than 10% of 70-year-olds read anything online in 2008.
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My dad is soon to be 75 and semi-retired and one of his main sources of entertainment is reading political blogs like yours. At this point he's got at least 10 on his link list (I only read 3 now). I even set him up with a quick way to listen to his jazz station online while he reads them, but he hasn't used that yet since I set it up 2 weeks ago.
I'm shocked by the "Less than 10% of 70-year-olds read anything online in 2008" figure. Both my inlaws are pretty intense internet users, as is my father (though he used to print out pdfs, but that's stopped with a good laptop). I find it hard to believe this is just a class issue, and even just being an educated older person by standard definitions should get you at least 20% of that population.
So I don't buy this 10% figure.
asdf,
I've been trying to get my parents to embrace the web for years, but no dice, and they have no good reason why they don't do it.
So they end up with the mind-rot of O'Reilly and friends. If Netflix would offer a bigger selection of films over the web, especially older films, I think I could finally get my folks set up. They did seem a little interested in video on demand at a reasonable monthly price.
I figure this must under report fiction reading since most of what I see in the newspaper qualifies. It's what drove me to blogs.
I'm preparing for the Twilight divorce effect in thirteen years. That's when all the 30-year-old women decide their husbands do not love them as much as Edward loved Bella.
Kevin: "About half of 18-44 year-olds read an article or essay online last year, with the number plummeting quickly above that. Less than 10% of 70-year-olds read anything online in 2008."
But the good news, however necdotal it might be, is that over two-thirds of the srudents enrolled in the two computer literacy classes I teach in the evenings at our local public high school are older adults who are 65 and over.
My oldest student this semester is 82 years young, and she still possesses an innate curiosity of the world around her. Other seniors find the internet and e-mail to be a godsend, allowing them to maintain regular contact with family and friends as their general mobility decreases and they get out less.
The internet as a source for all data is accelerating. With the New Year, newspaper readers may have noticed slimmer print editions. With the demise of the old, wasteful economy, and an emphasis on preserving scarce natural resources, most reading will take place on the internets.
two thoughts: 1) poetry is too good for one's brain to ignore. While every day's choice may not be compelling, I suggest you all visit http://poems.com/today.php for the daily poem (well, today's poem is not one of my all time favorites, but over the years I've read many wonderful poems there and even purchased books to find more of particular poets...)
2)the oldies in our family have no patience with internet reading because things go wrong -- the first time a link doesn't work, or the connection is slow, or anything, it's like, "why should I do this when I can read the paper or turn on the tv/radio?" granted, our oldies are over 80, not over 70, and for them keyboards/mice/control pad etc. are just not familar and natural. I don't think this is something that will continue; that is I don't think there's something about being old that turns one away from the internet, but I think that one should not underestimate the barrier that unfamiliarity presents.
Well, look at it this way...the past 12 years or more has been an adventure in right-wing fantasy and fiction as abetted and disseminated in the MSM........Everyone breathing has been steeped in *%it
Wow I actually really like that poem elisabeth. Thanks for the link and a hearty second for reading of poetry. It does too much good stuff for your brain and your body not to read it pretty regularly.
Only 8% of people read 'a poem' last year. That's just mind bogglingly depressing.
Okay, this is freaky. You wonder if the reading boom is on account of Harry Potter? What if instead it's the influence of the Bush vs. Rove annual reading contests? I kid. I kid.
Poetry is read by so few people, because it is marketed to so few people.
By comparison it's most familiar form (music lyrics) are heard by a large number of people!
1. I wanna see a survey which tells us whether people who read Harry Potter books go on to read anything else. I mean, I guess one book is better than none. . . well, maybe not if that one book is The Purpose-Driven Life or The Secret. . . Well, anyway, more information please!
2. The report says, "A decline in both reading and reading ability was clearly documented in the first generation of teenagers and young adults raised in a society full of videogames, cell phones, iPods, laptops, and other electronic devices." Apple launched the iPod line on 23 October 2001, essentially at the point when the "percentage of 18-24-year-olds" line starts going up. Teenagers are far more immersed in wireless this and wiki that than their counterparts were in 2001. Doesn't look like the rise of the Omnipresent Network has hurt, does it?