This morning's Boston Globe has a front page article, Young People Reading a Lot Less. There is a lot of hand wringing about a National Endowment for the Arts study that finds young people, defined as somewhere between 13 and 24, are reading a lot less, but are they?
Specifically, according to the article, youngsters are reading fewer books for pleasure. That may be so, although the young people in my house between those ages are certainly exceptions. But the article and the study suggest that this lack of reading can have a trickle down effect of isolating people and limiting positive social behaviors.
Possibly the most striking finding is that, regardless of income, levels of reading for pleasure correlate closely with levels of social life, voting, and political activism, participation in culture and fine arts, volunteerism, charity work, and even regular exercise.
Now, I can believe young people are reading less for pleasure, but one of the reasons they aren't reading books is because they are often otherwise engaged on the web. The web has become the social center and the popularity of social sites such as MySpace and Facebook would suggest that young people are far from isolated. In fact, they are probably more connected than in any time in history because technology provides a way to connect to more people than ever before possible.
I'm a big fan of reading, but I think young people are reading, just not in the same way as previous generations. Maybe they are not reading newspapers (at least paper ones), but it's entirely likely they are reading news online. Maybe they aren't reading for pleasure either (which I find sad simply because I believe it to be a wonderful activity), but I am willing to bet that young people are reading plenty on the web because that is the center of their lives.
I can't help but feel that there is a generational bias in this report. That because young people don't follow the same path we did, it is cause to sound a general alarm. Sure, I would like to see kids read books, but there are other ways to get your reading done these days and maybe if these studies counted online reading, the results might be a little different. In any event, I'm not convinced that a kid who doesn't pick up a book is somehow going to degenerate into an apathetic dolt. On the contrary, maybe because the web provides more ways to connect people, that will translate into more positive social activities such as civic participation and volunteering and social networks certainly have the power to lead the way.
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