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more Learning storiesIS READING IN DECLINE?
VIDEO
Has the written word surpassed its usefulness? Marc Prensky thinks most books are too long, for starters.
A 2007 study by the National Endowment for the Arts found three distinct trends:
- a historical decline in voluntary reading rates among teenagers and young adults
- a gradual worsening of reading skills among older teens
- declining proficiency in adult readers
The study added "a fourth observation: frequency of reading for pleasure correlates strongly with better test scores in reading and writing. Frequent readers are thus more likely than infrequent or non-readers to demonstrate academic achievement in those subjects."
Not everyone is panicked about the findings, however. Author and blogger Steven Johnson writes that the study was biased against computer reading, citing a British Library study of onscreen research activities which found that "'new forms of 'reading' are emerging as users 'power browse.'"
Johnson also points out that "novel readers may have declined by 10 percent, but the number of bloggers has gone from zero to 25 million." While blogging has certainly increased, a 2008 survey by Technorati found that only about 5 percent of blogs had been updated in the previous 120 days.
Resources
- National Endowment for the Arts study on reading [PDF]
- Guardian response to the NEA study by blogger Stephen Johnson
- U.K. study on screen research
- Technorati's 2008 blog survey
- Reading trends report by the National Center for Education Statistics
Comments
Nice Video. its a great video about social networking.
KRYSTIAN / September 2, 2009 5:21 PMNot all activities as an adolescent are mechanisms for future skills. Nor adult activities.
Those bell-bottoms that kids bought way back when had no bearing on their non-existent future as a pants designer, the donuts in the 69 Challenger had nothing to do with applicable driving skills, and that drunk chick that a young sophomore guy kissed had no advantage in his relationships later in life. Just like myspace or facebook these are all social things that help socialize young adults for proper behavior. On the brink of virtual reality we are gonna need it. For we are establishing social norms and taboos today, that WILL be applicable tomorrow.
And once again you are assigning significance to everything an individual does. Christmas lights, house renovation, expensive cars, etc., have no non-material benefit.
Its the wave of the future man, and you missed out on the surf lessons.
Sam Glancy / December 31, 2009 5:20 AM