Are People Reading Less? Are we all morons now?
Have we become a morass of ignorant, illiterate morons? For most people this question would be a no-brainer (forgive the pun), Book reading overall is supposedly in decline, but does that mean? Less than half of US adults read even a book a year (48% in 2022 rather than 54% in 2012), according to one survey, reported in Publisher’s Weekly. (Link: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=4377 ) But, weirdly, that isn’t necessarily because fewer people are reading at all. The raw number of those who read at all seems to be stable. The problem is that Whales have become Less Whaley. What I mean is that among readers, some are Whales and some are Minnows. If you read one piddling book a year, sorry, Minnows. If you read 15, you’re a Whale. If you read a book a week, I love you. The Whales getting less Whaley means that fewer people read more than 10 books per year, dropping from 35% in 2016 to 27% in 2021 . Americans read an average of 12...