U.S. News & World Report article on books

[SFG75]

A recent copy(March 16th, 2006) has an interesting read. With the publishing world being rocked by the DaVinci Code lawsuit, lying authors, technology encroaching on the written word in pulp, not to mention declining numbers of readers. From the article:

Fewer than half of all American adults now read "literature" (loosely defined as fiction or poetry). The numbers showed a 10 percent decline in literary readers for all age groups from 1982 to 2002 and a whopping 28 percent decrease in young adults ages 18 to 24. In total, the study calculated, 20 million potential readers had been lost. "Never in my career have I seen a report where there is no good news," NEA Chairman Dana Gioia declared at the time.

The Article

So what will it take for publishers and readers to overcome these problems?

Is this the end of books as we know them? How much longer can the decline in readers go?

Any thoughts?

 

[angerball]

I think there are more forms of "easy" entertainment, that are detracting from books (ie. internet, TV, movies, computer games). How to overcome it? Maybe choose some more interesting books for school, instead of Shakespeare etc. Enjoyable for some, but I think most 15 year olds would prefer something a little more contemporary.

 

[Thivya]

i actually copy and pasted this quote onto my online diary. i thought id write my thoughts on it here too..im doing a lot of random copying and pasting today.

i'm gonna force my kids to read whether they like it or not! hehe. i'll beat them with a stick if they refuse. haha. they probably wont publish books when i have children. there will probably be little portable computers with pictures to stare at. little cute comics through which the government brainwash the next generation.

 

[SFG75]

I believe that both of you are right, we are definitely headed to a time where technology will hollow out books or eliminate them completely. People "read," they are just reading screens according to the article.

Another answer is that readers have gone screen-happy and wireless: "People are reading more than ever--screen-based reading, on mobile phone, BlackBerrys, computer screens, reading blogs, and gathering information on the Web," asserts Keith Titan, vice president for new media at Random House. "As a publishing industry we need to provide products that meet the needs of this digital, Internet-savvy generation."

Products that may--or may not--meet those needs include portable digital reading devices that feature long-life batteries and an easy-to-read "electronic ink" display. Darren Bischoff, senior marketing manager of E Ink Corp., says his company's high-resolution paper-and-ink-like display reduces eye strain because, unlike a computer screen, E Ink uses ambient light and does not flicker. Those factors also minimize glare and make the screen easily readable in sunlight.

I'm not certain that holding Luddite views towards the net and technology is a good thing to do, I wonder if it isn't resisting the inevitable, just as when the hand-loom weavers smashed the equipment that made them expendable. In thinking about it, take a look at the learning leap-pads deal. You have computer chips in those "books" that kids can call upon to help them with a word when they want. I think that they're the greatest thing, but aren't they really a part of the problem that the publishing and *slow reading* culture worlds so rightly fear? Not only that, but I don't know how many newspapers I read online as opposed to those that I actually buy and enjoy, but the former definitely hold the advantage over the latter. I guess the whole point of what I'm trying to say is that even if one is "pro-reading," there are ways in which we don't realize that we are a part of the problem.

I can't prove it, but I think it would be a great research topic to look at papers written by high school seniors in 1900, 1950, and the present day. Take the top 2% of papers in the same area that has roughly had the same ethnic make up. Use a simple vocabulary grade level system and see who has the best scores. I would postulate that as the twentieth century lumbered on, the scores decline. I would argue that the reason is due to technology. Now I could be wrong and maybe the scores have improved, but in working in the business, that isn't what I'm seeing. That, or I'm practically blind.

 

[novella]

This is a nonissue, which you would know if you read the whole article.

Book sales were up almost 10% from 2004 to 2005. Adult readers are reading more nonfiction--someone says this may be because we are living in 'serious times." A 10% drop over 20 years (from 1982 to 2002), based on a survey in which we don't know the actual question that was asked, is not something to get worried about, particularly when there are more small presses than ever and more book sales than ever and more ways to make and sell books than ever.

To tie this gradual 20-year decline to James Frey's so-called nonfiction book (which would not even impinge upon this particular statistic) is really a spurious leap. All of the recent news in the article about the publishing economy is positive--sales, activity, number of new publishers and authors, markets.

Also, this doesn't even mention the growing world market for English-language books, particularly new fiction. Overseas sales for quality fiction are higher than ever.

This isn't anywhere near a fire; more like a match between someone's toes.

 

[steffee]

I can't prove it, but I think it would be a great research topic to look at papers written by high school seniors in 1900, 1950, and the present day. Take the top 2% of papers in the same area that has roughly had the same ethnic make up. Use a simple vocabulary grade level system and see who has the best scores. I would postulate that as the twentieth century lumbered on, the scores decline. I would argue that the reason is due to technology. Now I could be wrong and maybe the scores have improved, but in working in the business, that isn't what I'm seeing. That, or I'm practically blind.

That's a fascinating idea.

 

[Poppy1]

That's a fascinating idea.

Yes it would be very interesting. Vocabulary would be a good test. I went to a talk a few years ago about the direction our education was taking and was amazed to hear that it was no longer thought necessary to put a great deal of emphasis on spelling, grammar and arithmetic. So there has certainly been a decline here in those areas, however vocabulary uses a greater knowledge base and would be a fairer comparison.

 

[SFG75]

Book sales were up almost 10% from 2004 to 2005. Adult readers are reading more nonfiction--someone says this may be because we are living in 'serious times."

I don't know if one year of good sales is an absolute success. If it's true that the industry has some bad years, then that just means that an increase in sales is for the fewer companies around, while others have been forced out of the market. More profits for less competitors?

To tie this gradual 20-year decline to James Frey's so-called nonfiction book (which would not even impinge upon this particular statistic) is really a spurious leap.

It could be that the greater point was that it sullied the old publishing houses reputation, much like the NYT and it's problems with a reporter who sat in the bar and made up stories. If they can't run a tight ship, then who is to say the entire industry is a bunch of schlubs? Likewise, the old publishing giants probably fear how that whole episode will make them look. Maybe an author will spurn them and turn to newer, independent venues based on perception. It isn't exactly an irrational fear.

All of the recent news in the article about the publishing economy is positive--sales, activity, number of new publishers and authors, markets.

All would be a stretch in my humble opinion. The record is quite mixed according to the Association of American Publishers. Your citation of the '04-'05 numbers is positive, though the question is-will it last?

Also, this doesn't even mention the growing world market for English-language books, particularly new fiction. Overseas sales for quality fiction are higher than ever.

Ahhh, perhaps so, but the article is dealing with the issue in America. I'm sure the NEA is concerned about international book reading habits, but as a member of the group, I can testify that their concerns are more national than international in scope.

This isn't anywhere near a fire; more like a match between someone's toes.

I most definitely hope that you're right.

 

[steffee]

It's said here (in the UK) every year when GCSE (compulsory and for 16 year olds) and particularly, A level (that's 16-18 year old education, it's not compulsory) results are published that the exams are easier now, and education is not at the same level as it once was. There's particular criticism with regard to spelling, grammar and punctuation, and letters from disgruntled education people appear in The Times etc. But a recent study here has found that in fact, written English in exams hasn't deteriorated as much as the "figures" like to make out.

I daresay there will be a certain number of students who write "TXTSPK" in their exams, but they're a minority, apparently. So that's good to hear.

But yes, a study of that nature would be interesting to see.

 

[SFG75]

Closely related to this topic is the overall decline of student skills in math. One of the more interesting folk stories going through the e-mail forward world is the 1890 8th grade exam for the state of Kansas. supposedly, this lets us all know just how stupid we all are and how we should be ashamed of our educational insitutions. And look at the problems, they are very daunting. At the same time, a little perspective needs to be added. this test was made at a time in America when we lived in an agricultural economy. Kids had to know weights, measures, and how to figure yields on acres in order to make a living. Is that necessarily useful now? Take one of those kids or a senior citizen today who knows everything, and have them turn on the computer. Better yet, have them open an application, write a letter, and print it out. Nine times out of ten, they can't do it. We are no longer in the agricultural era and our skills and what we emphasize have changed. In that regard, who is the educated one?

Likewise, perhaps that is the problem with literacy. In this technological era, we just have to fill things out online or type a letter to the editor. No longer does a person actually write a letter. Remember penmanship? is good spelling and grammar a sacrifice necessary for a changing economy like the math example above? I don't know. Instead of creating spelling champions who can write wonderfully or persuasively, we have computer programmers and website designers whose high literacy is programming and html code.

 

[SFG75]

It's said here (in the UK) every year when GCSE (compulsory and for 16 year olds) and particularly, A level (that's 16-18 year old education, it's not compulsory) results are published that the exams are easier now, and education is not at the same level as it once was. There's particular criticism with regard to spelling, grammar and punctuation, and letters from disgruntled education people appear in The Times etc. But a recent study here has found that in fact, written English in exams hasn't deteriorated as much as the "figures" like to make out.

I daresay there will be a certain number of students who write "TXTSPK" in their exams, but they're a minority, apparently. So that's good to hear.

But yes, a study of that nature would be interesting to see.

The *easier* test that you mention has to do with my previous post. As skills and what is valued in an economy change, perhaps the emphasis shifts a bit?

 

[steffee]

The *easier* test that you mention has to do with my previous post. As skills and what is valued in an economy change, perhaps the emphasis shifts a bit?

Yes, you raise some very good points. Maybe grammar etc has slipped a little, but if so, the students today "know" so much more. So much more that is relevant to life today, as opposed to life 50 years ago.

That all ties in too, with your technological era posts above.

My A level English exam contained a question about how "mass media" had influenced changing English, and that was in 1999, a lifetime in technology years.

 

[Halo]

It's said here (in the UK) every year when GCSE (compulsory and for 16 year olds) and particularly, A level (that's 16-18 year old education, it's not compulsory) results are published that the exams are easier now, and education is not at the same level as it once was. There's particular criticism with regard to spelling, grammar and punctuation, and letters from disgruntled education people appear in The Times etc. But a recent study here has found that in fact, written English in exams hasn't deteriorated as much as the "figures" like to make out.

When I was at school (back in the old days), we had to know how to spell and punctuate correctly. Just as I was leaving school, the powers-that-be decided not to mark students' exam papers down for spelling or punctuation errors. It was the content that was seen as the only important thing.

In the last two days, it was announced in the papers that students who cannot spell or punctuate correctly will not be able to score higher than a D grade in GCSE English, so the wheel has turned again!

 

[steffee]

When I was at school (back in the old days), we had to know how to spell and punctuate correctly. Just as I was leaving school, the powers-that-be decided not to mark students' exam papers down for spelling or punctuation errors. It was the content that was seen as the only important thing.

In the last two days, it was announced in the papers that students who cannot spell or punctuate correctly will not be able to score higher than a D grade in GCSE English, so the wheel has turned again!

I can't remember the criteria for GCSEs, though I suspect you're right and spelling etc didn't come into it.

It did with A levels, where you could lose up to 5% of your grade for poor spelling etc, and at degree level upto 10%! That doesn't include grammatical errors that result in a sentence/paragraph reading completely ambiguously, and so will be marked down separately too.

It should though. I understand that the spellchecker generation needs to pay less attention to spelling and such, but that doesn't account for certain words that are plainly wrong, but which a spellchecker would deem correct, such as they're / their / there and discreet/discrete, both examples resulting in detrimental sentence structure.

Also, for all jobs today rely less on old-style calculations and typewriter usage, there are increasingly numbers of jobs that require the employee to prepare reports and such, for which bad usage of language gives a poor image of the company.

 

[aniela]

i think this kind of issue always appears when it comes to changes in society etc. i would like to see a survey on the numbers of tv watching since the computer games are so much used, or cinema going since the intense use of dvd players. i think it is normal for young people to be more interesting in what is new, like computers and the rest, because this is what characterizes them. i think each of us found something to express himself or herself as different from her or his parents' generation.
as about book reading, i think that school does not present books in a very attractive light (i can only speak about school in my native country, romania, where fortunately people still read a lot). i think it is too much emphasized the "classical inheritance", and teachers forget than their students like to live in the present. when i was in high school, even those colleagues of mine who did not use to read were reading contemporary authors. the problem was that they needed someone to recommend books to them. and our teachers did not use to talk about contemporary books.

 

[novella]

Closely related to this topic is the overall decline of student skills in math. One of the more interesting folk stories going through the e-mail forward world is the 1890 8th grade exam for the state of Kansas. supposedly, this lets us all know just how stupid we all are and how we should be ashamed of our educational insitutions.

.

The percentage of kids who graduated from 8th grade in 1890 was just a tiny fraction of what it is today (probably even smaller in the farm states like Kansas), and they were older, having gone part-time to one-room schoolhouses.

Most US teens in those days had financial responsibilities, language problems, family obligations, and left school after the 6th grade, if they got that far. So the percentage of kids taking that exam would have been very small, probably college-bound, US born, fairlyl well off. The 'average' kid in the US just then would have been second-generation immigrant with no money and serious commitments on the homefront. The 'average' 14 year old in 1890 certainly wasn't doing trig and geometry and planning to go on to calculus, as my son was.

 

[novella]

Less than 5% of kids in the US went to high school at all in 1890. Less than 3% graduated. About 50 percent made it through the third grade.

In 1893, the NEA appointed something called the Commission of Ten to broaden public high schools' mission and curriculum to make it more accessible to the booming populations, especially in the cities. Thus, the endless dumbing down and broadening of the curriculum began, though the push did manage to make basic higher education and vocational education available to everyone. By any standards, up until the 1970s the US system saw a lot of progress in public education, with the Depression disrupting the pattern in some ways. Basically, during the Depression, high school was viewed by public officials as a way to keep young people out of the job market. I'm referring to the national, public-policy view, of course, not the view of the average teacher.

But comparing today's high school math curriculum to an 1890 test given to a very small, elite population isn't really a fair comparison, is it? All kids are expected to graduate high school now (to fail to do so, to 'drop out', is considered a failure of the individual and the system, not a natural choice), and thus 100% of the population is expected to be able to pass standardized math tests. That's quite a jump from 3%.

 

[SFG75]

But comparing today's high school math curriculum to an 1890 test given to a very small, elite population isn't really a fair comparison, is it?

The point wasn't that standards have declined. My point was that as times have changed(from an agricultural to industrial society, and now to an information society) so has the emphasis on certain academic skills and abilities in each academic area of study.

 

[novella]

Closely related to this topic is the overall decline of student skills in math. One of the more interesting folk stories going through the e-mail forward world is the 1890 8th grade exam for the state of Kansas. supposedly, this lets us all know just how stupid we all are and how we should be ashamed of our educational insitutions. And look at the problems, they are very daunting. At the same time, a little perspective needs to be added. this test was made at a time in America when we lived in an agricultural economy. Kids had to know weights, measures, and how to figure yields on acres in order to make a living. Is that necessarily useful now?

But you are clearly implying here that kids in 1890 had better math skills and could do those problems. I'm saying only 3% could probably do those problems, whereas 100% of kids are expected to pass today's high school math tests.

 

[SFG75]

A study on writing skill levels would also be valid as you are dealing with the same age group in a geographical setting. To negate the problem of comparing farm kids who just wanted to pass on through to those who are expected to graduate is accomplished through taking the top 1 or 2% of papers to analyze. In those days, the top kids in a given went on to college while the others headed for the homes and the fields. In other words, we are comparing the cream of the crop for each era. That is just about as equal as you can get.