Americans ages 15 to 24 on average spend two hours a day watching TV and only seven minutes on leisure reading, reducing their chances for high-paying jobs and community service, according to a report by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sixty-one percent of those holding managerial or professional jobs were proficient readers, said the report, citing a 2003 U.S. Education Department survey. Some 70 percent of the people rated as poor readers felt their lack of skills had limited their job opportunities.
The number of adults who read should be increased to improve both the quality of their lives and the future of their children, said Dana Gioia, chairman of the arts endowment, which compiled the report from studies conducted by the Education Department, the American Association of School Librarians and Statistics Canada.
“Is this a cultural apocalypse? No,” said Gioia, a 56-year-old poet and literary critic, during a Nov. 13 news conference. “There are still a substantial number of people in the U.S. who read and read well.”
The report concluded that 57 percent of those who had proficient reading skills had performed volunteer work, compared with 18 percent of the people with poor skills.
It also found that the better a person’s reading skills, the more likely that person voted in the 2000 election. The Education Department study showed 84 percent of proficient readers voted, compared with 62 percent of those with basic skills and 53 percent of those with poor skills.
“Reading books transforms people’s lives,” Gioia said. “Reading seems to awaken something in individuals. America cannot afford to lose the benefits of universal literacy.” Gioia said the country needs to promote literacy the way it did science and math after the Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik satellite in 1957, triggering the space race.
“I think our report, ‘To Read or Not To Read,’ needs to summon the same sort of national resolve,” Gioia said.
Gioia, the author of “Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture” (Graywolf Press, 2004), said electronic media, such as television and computers, are threatening the printed word. He said he doesn’t agree with the assessment that the decline of the written word is an evolutionary process.
“As more and more competing media are introduced into kids’ lives, adults’ lives, these things make it more difficult to find the time to read,” Gioia said.
Watching television dominates all other activities for U.S. adults over 15, the report said, citing a study by the U.S. Department of Labor. On weekdays, U.S. residents spent 2 hours and 21 minutes watching television. The next-highest category was 36 minutes spent socializing.
On weekends, television viewing climbed to 3 hours and 6 minutes. Socializing again took second, at 1 hour and seven minutes. In both cases, people spent less than 30 minutes reading.
