>
> On Jan 27, 2011, at 10:33 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> > just out of curiosity: what horrible fate will befall us if no one wants
> to read?
>
> This is from the the first volume of the OECD's latest PISA report:
>
> "Levels of reading literacy are more reliable predictors of economic and
> social well-being than is the quantity of education as measured by years at
> school or in post-school education."
>
> I.e., the better you can read, the better off and healthier you are.
>
>
I don't disagree that reading is good. And my anecdotal experience is with
students who resist reading. So all of that I am on board with. Where I am
struggling is in ascertaining to what extent "kids these days" *read
less*than "kids [say] twenty years ago."
To that end, I am looking around, but I just tripped right over this survey, from just about a year ago, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, <http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia012010nr.cfm>
from which:
*Types of media kids consume*. Time spent with every medium other than movies and print increased over the past five years: :47 a day increase for music/audio, :38 for TV content, :27 for computers, and :24 for video games. TV remains the dominant type of media content consumed, at 4:29 a day, followed by music/audio at 2:31, computers at 1:29, video games at 1:13, print at :38, and movies at :25 a day.**
*High levels of media multitasking.* High levels of media multitasking also contribute to the large amount of media young people consume each day. About 4 in 10 7th-12th graders say they use another medium “most” of the time they’re listening to music (43%), using a computer (40%), or watching TV (39%).
*Additional findings:*
- *Reading**. * Over the past 5 years, time spent reading books remained
steady at about :25 a day, but time with magazines and newspapers dropped
(from :14 to :09 for magazines, and from :06 to :03 for newspapers). The
proportion of young people who read a newspaper in a typical day dropped
from 42% in 1999 to 23% in 2009. On the other hand, young people now
spend an average of :02 a day reading magazines or newspapers online.