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While it makes only small mention of online reading, it is a fascinating study in demographics.
The survey, by the National Endowment for the Arts, also indicates that people who read for pleasure are many times more likely than those who don't to visit museums and attend musical performances, almost three times as likely to perform volunteer and charity work, and almost twice as likely to attend sporting events.Readers, in other words, are active, while nonreaders — more than half the population — have settled into apathy. There is a basic social divide between those for whom life is an accrual of fresh experience and knowledge, and those for whom maturity is a process of mental atrophy.
NY Times article [nytimes.com]
While I belong to the "active" non-apathetic by that definition (in other words, I do and enjoy and pay for cheerfully ALL OF THE ABOVE - on a CONSTANT basis), I do have one teensy caveat to enter:
You need to validate the source. The NEA is not only fairly out-of-favor due to some SERIOUSLY bad donation decisions in the last decade or so (another caveat: I PERSONALLY don't think they were bad decisions, but those who have the "real" clout DO), it is one of the most-vilified, least-respected taxpayer-supported agencies currently extant.
I wouldn't actually give a penny-farthing for any research it provided/supported at this point. It's as likely that NEA will be IN favor and considered veracious tomorrow as the complete opposite....
When I hired and trained management for a retail chain, I became increasingly distressed at the "functional illiteracy" among applicants and employees - even those with college degrees and even graduate degrees.
And watching Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" TV segments (these often deal with how informed the general public is or isn't) also reinforces the NEA findings for me. The one factoid that did strike me as odd was the "attend sporting events" connection. However there is probably a big difference between those who get their butts out of the house and into the seats, and a basic couch potato.
Anyway, just because I (an anomaly at best, and I don't even want to consider what "at worst" portends....) do the sporting events thing doesn't mean it's "normal"....
Here's a sort of overall view of what I do that's "NOT work/normal" (though some of it IS sitting on my rear for hours at a time....) I hunt elk, deer, and game birds (yup, find them, shoot them, clean them; cook them; eat them); ride my horse; hike a 10,000+ ft mountain; fish various lakes and streams and occasionally the Pacific Ocean; write novels; design websites (which includes a bit of script coding); write and run text-only role-playing games (which requires MUSH coding); I'm an interior designer; I cross-stich, designing my own charts; I build and re-build computers; I attend the Utah Shakespearean Festival productions (several every season) and plays presented in various venues in Salt Lake City; I attend at least 3 of the NFR dates in Las Vegas each year (would do more but can't get tickets yet), as well as watch rodeo on tv any chance I get (the ONLY tv I do is baseball, basketball, football, rodeo, and horse racing/equestrian events so I also see a lot of those sports on the box....) there's more, but some of it's not germane to the discussion.... and I READ. I read most fantasy/sci-fi that comes along, and some "trash romance" that's got a decent "side-story", biography, mystery, and a fair amount of archeological/anthropoligical non-fiction.
*sigh* And then we go to the "functional illiteracy" situation.... there isn't 1 in 10 of the kids who graduate from high school here who can really read, read for content, and understand what they read; multiply 6 x 9 (WITHOUT A CALCULATOR!); make change for a dollar much less a twenty (WITHOUT a computerized cash register terminal!); get a half-decent SAT score to even qualify for the local state-supported college; figure out how to keep the car engine from freezing up (CHANGE/ADD OIL FOR CATS'SAKES!), etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseam.
And these are people we're going to allow to VOTE in a year or so? Oy....
"Watching television is living life second-hand" - from some John MacDonald book
And I do go to a lot of sporting events and concerts, not big on museums, though...
Thank you television. :(
Just thinking of the people in my life for the past 10/20 years or more, these results do ring true for me
They ring true to me as well. Actually, I know of no exceptions at all.
She's 37 - with kids of her own to be thankful for Harry Potter over.
People who enjoy reading can imagine what's happening in the book and can and do exercise their imagination in other ways. If you can't imagine something, it gets to be pretty dry and boring. Think about how your favorite book would read if you could "see" in your head what was happening. Believe it or not, there is now a huge population that can't do exactly that. They can't imagine.
I've had a similar discussion with a friend before, but I've never heard it stated so well. Thanks, hannamyluv! I love stealing other people's words to explain how I think. That will be put to use...
So the "real movie" is pretty anticlimactic for me (as well as having only 3 actors who even come close to how I have always imagined the "cast": Frodo, Gimli, and Legolas.... well, Elrond isn't bad either, but just not right "on"....
[Oops! Hijack! Sorry.... swat my hand....]
I remember discussions about the animated version of "The Hobbit" that came out in the late '70s. It was widely accepted that the only way to do Middle Earth was through animation. "How could anyone dream of capturing even a fraction of the detail in a standard film with real people?" But then, a computer on every desktop was still a dream also.
As for books always being better than the movie, I have one exeption that proves the rule: StarWars :)
</hijak>
HOW GAWDAWFUL DEPRESSING! But true, nonetheless.
*sigh*
On the flip side, my first grade, 6-1/2 year old son reads and comprehends at a level beyond the 4th grade.
