White Beard said:

human nature. why read a book when there are tons of electronic gizmos to distract and entertain now a days?

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Quote:

Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping arch, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.

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Quote:

In the presence of real tragedy you feel neither pain nor joy nor hatred, only a sense of enormous space and time suspended, the great doors open to black eternity, the rising across the terrible field of that last enormous, unanswerable question.

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Jokeshopbeard said:

I couldn't disagree more. I see nothing about texting that will stimulate the mind in the way dedicating yourself to a book will. Have you been to major city recently and see the zombies glued to their phones? Shit, a 20 year old guy got killed by a truck outside my office recently after he walked into the road without looking - staring at his phone no less. Or couples, sitting across the table from each other, staring at their phones, not talking.

I'm surprised you think they're comparable.

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RennHuhn said:

Your generation and the one before and so on was probably also called a generation of idiots. This cultural pessimism is somthing that really hampers a culture, as it is a form of conservativism. The lack of critical thinking is not the fault of the youth. The previous generations fucked that up. All this whining about the younger generations is victim blaming at its best. Books are helpful but not a critical part of developing critical thinking. The surrounding culture and parents are far more important.

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DividedQuantum said:

Well, I wouldn't separate any of this from culture overall.  Even parenting is very much an aspect of culture.  The whole phenomenon is cultural per se.  Books are more than 'helpful,' we're talking about basic literacy here, which is a very important factor.  As in some of the other posts in this thread, this is much larger than just reading statistics.  The whole cultural arc comprises demonstrably decadent and decaying aspects, of which the decline in intellectual aptitude (which is also eminently demonstrable) is but one manifestation. 

Everything is not okay.

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DividedQuantum said:

SURPRISING BOOK FACTS

Quote:

33 percent of high school graduates never read another book the rest of their lives

42 percent of college grads never read another book after college

57 percent of new books are not read to completion

70 percent of US adults have not been in a bookstore the last five years

80 percent of US families did not buy or read a book last year


source: The Jenkins Group/Brian Tracy

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Comments?  Does this alarm anyone?

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DividedQuantum said:

SURPRISING BOOK FACTS

Quote:

33 percent of high school graduates never read another book the rest of their lives

42 percent of college grads never read another book after college

57 percent of new books are not read to completion

70 percent of US adults have not been in a bookstore the last five years

80 percent of US families did not buy or read a book last year


source: The Jenkins Group/Brian Tracy

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Comments?  Does this alarm anyone?

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I read this with complete incredulity, but upon further consideration of people I have known over say, the last 20 years, my incredulity turned to acknowledgement. A former co-worker, a bright but emotionally disturbed Cuban woman who said "I lovvvvve my guns," and who believed that Obama would not only force her to give up her guns, but believed every bit of Rightest Republican Cuban radio bullshit in Miami, never read books. A guy whom I socialized with for 20 years, never read. In fact when he DID read The DaVinci Code years ago, his wife mocked him saying it was the first book he's read since college. I knew a school psychologist who when asked what he read responded with, "Oh, I don't read anymore." I have gone into homes where there were no bookshelves or books lying about (I always scope the house out for that). Come to think of it, that is MOST of the homes I've been in.

I was not an avid reader as a child, other than reading encyclopedia articles, a children's illustrated The Golden Book Encyclopedia, followed by The World Book Encyclopedia, and my BFF's father's Encyclopaedia Brittanica. I only read fiction for school book reports and assignments (my loss). But as an adult I am very opinionated about reading. I look disdainfully on those who don't read unless their circumstances do not allow for leisure. But if they do have leisure time and they utilize it exclusively for sitcom TV, soaps, novellas, gaming, chat rooms, or bad movies, with no reading, then they probably also consume junk food and the other sensate garbage the pop culture excretes.

What a person reads says a lot about them. My ex-wife read and reread her collection of Agatha Christie murder mysteries. Sometimes she didn't realize she'd already read one until it was 3/4 finished. Her choice wasn't my taste, but in itself I am not judging the literature. I am judging my ex's thinking, since towards the end of the marriage she made comments about me dying on public transportation, because of some double indemnity insurance clause, and she made a comment more than once about glass in my food! I suspect she was having the kinds of thoughts towards me that Charles Addams depicted in his New Yorker drawings (later, The Addams Family TV show, which was more humorous than macabre). Since m'Lady and I prefer to discuss idea, the people we prefer to hang out with are the ones who read books. Magazine articles just don't do it. There is something to be applauded in this quote that is frequently found on my Facebook pages: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt