Despite Harry, Fewer Americans Reading
Jul 08, 2004
Uncategorized
The National Endowment for the Arts has found that fewer than half of over 17,000 American adults surveyed read literature (defined as ‘poems, plays, or narrative fiction’), a drop of 7 points over the last decade.
NEA chairman Dana Gioia expressed concern for the results: “We have a lot of functionally literate people who are no longer engaged readers. This isn’t a case of ‘Johnny Can’t Read,’ but ‘Johnny Won’t Read.'”
Likely causes for the decline, according to the report, are television, movies, and the Internet. The full results of which will be released at a news conference today at the New York Public Library.
Source: The Associated Press