December 31, 2008
Is reading not on the decline?
The HP Alliance is committed to literacy. After all, we are named after a book. And awesome!, according to this reading is not on the decline as many of us think:
“We read much more now than we did in the ’50s. In 1957, 17 percent of people surveyed in a Gallup poll said they were currently reading a book; in 1990, over twice as many did. In 1953, 40 percent of people polled by Gallup could name the author of Huckleberry Finn; in 1990, 51 percent could. In 1950, 8,600 new titles were published; in 1981, almost five times as many.”
Article goes on to make an extra provocative point:
“I cannot remember ever visualizing a book’s characters, but everyone who writes about reading seems to do this, so perhaps I’m in the minority. Still, you could equally well say that you participate in making up TV characters because you have to imagine what they’re thinking, where in a novel, you’re often provided with this information.”
I do visualize a book’s characters. However, I’m going to say that I’m a huge reader and as a child I watched tv and movies obsessively. But I did not read too many books. I liked books. But I loved tv and movies. I probably watched between 2 and 3 hours of tv on a school night and that’s not counting weekends. Now I probably watch less than 2 hours of tv per week. Did tv and movies injure my imagination? I think they may have hurt my discipline in learning to be silent. But they got my imagination whirring and very ready to fall in love with reading when the time came. The author makes a pretty interesting point. What do you think?
Laura
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It’s funny you posted this because I am currently struggling with this very issue (electronics vs. reading)…
I’ve been very, very mad at the internet. As a kid, sure, I went on my computer and I turned on the TV. But if there was a book I wanted to read, I would read it. I COULD read it.
Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a fantasy binge. Obviously I read HP when I was younger, as well as the Chronicles of Narnia and the Hobbit, but I could never get through LotR. So I sat down with the Fellowship last week and I have found it exceedingly hard to concentrate. My mind is constantly wandering, and sometimes I find myself thinking “I’ll go check facebook/fanfiction.net/youtube/thehpalliance.com/anything else online later.”
I think that’s because when I get home from school, I jump on the computer to procrastinate homework and alleviate the never-ending stress they call high school.
Online, everything is so fast that I hardly have time to think before there’s a new topic on screen.
Anyway, I didn’t blame the internet for screwing up my imagination- I still have plenty of that. Just my concentration.
I’m considering taking a long break from my laptop, because of this (she types, online).
LotR is going fabulously, by the way, when I can focus. I missed having time to read for fun.