Please. Read a Goddamned Book.
November 19, 2007
Just in from the National Endowment for the Arts (via the Boston Globe):
The average person between ages 15 and 24 spends 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day watching TV and 7 minutes reading.
and
The report found that the more books there are in a young person’s home, the higher the average scores in science, civics, and history, all reading-based subjects.
and
Possibly the most striking finding is that, regardless of income, levels of reading for pleasure correlate closely with levels of social life, voting, and political activism, participation in culture and fine arts, volunteerism, charity work, and even regular exercise.
So…it’s not so hard to figure out whether reading is a good idea or not. Go read a book.
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my VERY first thought when I heard this on NPR this morning was that these people could not possibly have talked to either you or me. I think we could have skewed the results just between us.
Would that reading a book would reverse the findings listed above (lessen TV watching, increase income, increase political activism, etc.), but I believe that would be mostly backwards. Correlation and causation and all. Says the guy who doesn’t read many books at all.