Turning the Tide

One of the big sneering refrains I've heard for years from naysayers who have tried to talk me out of being a writer is this: "No one reads any more."  I am ridiculously happy to tell you that finally seems to be changing:

For the first time in more than 25 years, American adults are reading more literature, according to a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts. Reading on the Rise documents a definitive increase in rates and numbers of American adults who read literature, with the biggest increases among young adults, ages 18-24. This new growth reverses two decades of downward trends cited previously in NEA reports such as Reading at Risk and To Read or Not To Read.

"At a time of immense cultural pessimism, the NEA is pleased to announce some important good news. Literary reading has risen in the U.S. for the first time in a quarter century," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "This dramatic turnaround shows that the many programs now focused on reading, including our own Big Read, are working. Cultural decline is not inevitable."

– More American Adults Read Literature According To New NEA Study.

The article that I got this link from attributes a lot of this to the Internet, and I'm sure a case can be made for that. What do I think?

I think that, for years, I've been seeing other sneering naysayers (well, a lot of the same ones as above, actually) decrying the fact that Our Children aren't reading Real Books — that they were reading Goosebumps, or the Harry Potter books, or, God help us all, fan-fiction.  And therefore, that all that reading didn't really count, somehow, because they weren't reading LITruhchur.

And I've been saying, look, they're reading, they're reading something, anything, that's not being forced on them by a teacher, they're reading for pleasure, and if they get in the habit of that they'll be hooked on it for life.  They'll develop more sophisticated tastes later. But they'll grow up to be readers.

Looks to me like maybe they did.