[tt] For Discussion: Decline in Reading?

[Premise Checker]

Decline in Reading?

Every few weeks we get the results from yet another survey deploring the 
decline of reading. Book shops are doomed, especially used book shops. 
Newspapers are doomed, esp. dead-tree newspapers.

But I, at least, spend as much time as ever reading, but it is mostly on a 
computer screen. I read far fewer whole books than I used to. This is both 
good and bad. Too many books have little to say, and quite a lot of them 
started as magazine articles. I have no big desire to read any books by, 
say, Thomas L. Friedman, even though he is quite a good writer. It's just 
that, though his many columns and some of his articles, I have picked up 
the gist of his ideas. (Today, he has a half-dozen hobby horses and says 
little that he hasn't said before. This happens as one gets older.)

On the other hand, one does need to immerse oneself leisurely into the 
mind of another thinker in order to understand what is driving him. A 
single essay, however brilliant, is unlikely to do this. So I miss reading 
fewer books. I have resolved repeatedly to read more books, but these 
resolutions have not been fruitful.

What I am asking is whether there is any evidence that the amount of 
daily time spent looking as ASCII characters has been declining. I would 
not be surprised if there has been an actual increase, if those who did 
not do much reading are now using computers, partly to play games but also 
to read.

I will share your response with my list unless you ask me not to or to do 
so without using your name.