Why is there a loss of interest in reading?

Why is there such a loss of interest in reading? When I went to high school in the early 50s, I certainly thought that reading was a lost enterprise. And we didn't have video games or much television to other wise occupy our time. None of my contemporaries read much of anything. I remember in my senior year, one semester we studied Macbeth and the final semester Hamlet. I was in an accelerated literature class for the best students, but everyone hated reading these plays. And so it goes. Reading has never been a popular pastime, but as kids grow older, some discover reading and the pleasure it brings.

Just look at the bookstores of today. There is such a plethora of literature available. When I was young, if the library didn't have the book you couldn't get it. I remember that about 1951 the movie of Scaramouche was made starring Stewart Granger. I saw the movie and wanted to read the book, but it just wasn't available. I don't think there is any worry about reading being a lost activity. Kids will go on hating the classics, but many will mature into avid readers. I absolutely detested Eliot's Silas Marner, but a few years out of school, I wodered how this book became so good in such a short space of time.

I agree, especially with the advent of amazon and the gutenburg project, people don't even need to leave their home to get books.

The classics probably will only ever appeal to a minority of people as something enjoyable to read, but reading as a past time is, if not spreading, at least becoming more accessible.

This is the information age, after all :D.

Sit on the London Underground some day and you will find people reading all around you, all ordinary people reading some very exrtra-ordinary books! You will find more people reading than listening to music (I listen to audio books while travelling so don't know how many of those with earphones actually 'read' instead of enjoy music.)

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Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow

Sit on the London Underground some day and you will find people reading all around you, all ordinary people reading some very exrtra-ordinary books! You will find more people reading than listening to music (I listen to audio books while travelling so don't know how many of those with earphones actually 'read' instead of enjoy music.)

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I have to disagree with you there. Yeah, a lot of people read on the underground, but the majority of the time they're reading the paper. I once spoke to a woman who was reading Moby Dick but I've never ever seen anyone reading any particularly 'serious' books. Also, pretty much everyone listens to music, all the time now. I think I'm the only person that doesn't but that's only because I have such big ears that headphones always fall out. That and my iPod being broken. But I'd say that far less people read than listen to music on the underground.

Books will survive and reading will not die as long as there are writers who can captivate and mesmerise readers. But it indeed is a fact that the number of writers who can make readers spell-bound and who can hold readers eager till the last page are dwindling. Those writers who know how to take-off do not know how to land and those who know how to land take-off awkwardly. Before going through one or two pages we learns that this writer has nothing to say and does not know how to say things. As one comes across more and more such books, his interest in reading dies, especially if he is young. If reading books seems to be rarer among people, it is due to bad authorship. It is true that more and more books are being printed nowadays. And it is equally true that lesser and lesser books are being read though being purchased. Though books are not for decoration, nothing more decorates a home than books. Because a writer is contemporary, his books needn't necessarily mean liked and popular. Books written by Robert Ludlum, Robin Cook, Frederich Forsyth, Alistaire Mac Lean, Arthur Hailey, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, Michael Chrichton and Mario Puzo are sold in hundred thousands, because they have a thrilling story to tell. But many famous and fast selling authors are just boosted up who are the responsible for so many loathing reading. People like to think that if it is a printed book, it would be good and interesting to read. But when disappointed a number of times, the flame of his interest in reading dies out. Television, Video and Internet are not at all responsible for the dying out of reading, because they cannot be carried with some one like a book, opened anytime one pleases and read lying anywhere, even under a shaded tree. Paperbacks were what revolutionised the habit of reading, and the invension of India Paper by the Oxford University Press Manager. Not because they became cheap, but because they became easy and light to be carried. Hard cover editions have the risk of slipping from our hands and dilapidating our chest cavity if we try to read them lying somewhere. Change in book sizes to the larger also affected reading habits adversely. The universally liked and appreciated Demi 1/8 is disappearing, which suits the economy of the printers and publishers alone, not the taste and flavour of the universal reading public. To retain and rekindle the interest in reading, it is good to seek books by the time-tested old authors. Since their books stood the severe test of time, they would be good anyway. And they are many fortunately.

I personally have noticed that the kids around me don't read because they are only looking for entertainment. Why spend an hour reading a chapter of a book, when you can spend that time at the theater? Reading definitely requires more concentration and energy from the individual, while something like a movie or a video game does that for you. The kids who do read aren't interested in literature, because it's too long. So I guess my point is, kids just don't have the attention span required to read a book. They've been trained that way. I think that if children are read to by their parents, starting at a young age, and the time the spend playing video games and watching movies is limited, they'll start reading again...

Video killed the radio star.


True story.

I am considered a weirdo because I take literature so seriously.
I absolutely love the diction of Spenser, Chaucer and Shakespeare .
The use of "-th" instead of an "-s" in "doth" , "hath" etc is just so lovely to the ear.
I love the use of archaisms to add humour.

I go out alot and people are much more interested in Jersey Shore and Charlie Sheen Tweets or what David Beckham has to say about global warming.

We cannot sweep under the rug that we have had a cultural dumming down of massive scale-not just reading.

The news itself it just a lot of shouting, sound bites, and sensational for the "sheeple".

There is hope though, I just do not know where to find it. I think our technology has far exceeded our humanity, perhaps it's a case of just too much information.

When was this literate and superior society that we are dumbed down from? In the UK at least, people were educated as factory fodder in the post war period, and this was hardly an education equivalent to today's. Literacy rates have gone up, not down, though they are by no means perfect.

Perhaps you are referring to what people choose to read and respond to at the moment, but this is a short term view. Not all, and probably most of those tweeters you mention won't be doing that in a few years time. Things move on, and perhaps on to better literature. In the long run, how interesting is celebrity culture? I don't think it can sustain a normal person for too long.

At my school I have actually been surprised by how many people do read. You walk through the locker room and pass over 5 people sitting down with books.

The quick answer: Society has evolved. There weren't computers and social networks and video games and accessible opportunities for travel as early as fifty years ago. As humanity's ability to create evolves, so to does his ability to create alterior forms of entertainment. The theorized "lack of interest in reading" in fact has little to do with the quality of literature produced as it does the amount of competition it faces for one's attention. I doubt Dickens would have been as popular had television and internet existed during his time.

Literature is a slow-blooming experience that requires an attentive mind and deep contemplation. This thick experience often competes against more instant forms of entertainment, and unless you have an acquired taste for literature, the reasons for choosing the latter over the former seem reasonable.

The long answer: there isn't a lack of interest. More people are reading today than ever. If your question is really "Why is there a loss of interest in [critical] reading?" perhaps we may have a different answer. But literature is no longer the apex of one's experience as it was for the many centuries before. And there are no shortage of people reading and analyzing classical literature. The internet has provided us means to connect with people throughout the world. Only through such a communicative process are we able to gauge the literary interests of those worldwide. In relation to the world, the proportion of those analyzing classical literature is perhaps low, but the mass itself, especially in comparison to prior eras, is staggeringly large. It is the sense of proportion--that we are a small group amongst a large body--that distorts our comprehension of literature's contemporary audience.

I have to say that I am part of the camp of the people who believe this trend, of decline in reading, is imaginary. There will always be people who like to read and the proportion of them will always be less to the proportion of the population who don’t like to read. Also, until about half a century ago, a large percentage of the population were illiterate. In fact, I live in a developed nation so perhaps they still are illiterate.

I actually think that because of improved literacy in developed countries, more people are found to be reading. About 10% of each carriage I am in, whilst commuting to work, are found with a book in their hands – reading. Rubbish perhaps but still reading. I disagree with the first poster on their taste of books – I would prefer a senseless romance to Jane Austen.

I’ve found reading also to be a very introvert activity. People who prefer video games and television would have preferred it over reading in the first place. Growing up, I was about the only person out of all of my friends who read (for enjoyment – there were many who read for pretentious reasons) and I never thought there was anything unusual about it.

I also have to add, living in Australia, that I am actually very happy with the demise of Borders. I feel that the presence of Borders in Australia contributed much to the decline of titles in its smaller competitors and to a gradual decline over time (after they chased away the competition) in titles in Borders stores.

Commercial mass entertainment, which in turn requires an abundance of resources, including oil, to maintain industrialization and consumer spending. But given fears of a resource crunch, including a drop in global oil production....

The best and most enjoyable reading is literary fiction. Other types merely convey information which can be gotten in other formats (which may be more convenient). Unfortunately, when in school we associate literary classics with exams and thus cannot enjoy them. Some lucky people discover when they graduate that reading is fun but school does little to prepare for this.

The best and most enjoyable reading is literary fiction.

Is it? I quite like a good deal of non-fiction: Goethe's Italian Journey, Plato's Republic, Emerson's Essays, Montaigne's Essays, J.L. Borges' Essays, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Rousseau's Confessions, etc...

To this I would add the genre of poetry which is every bit as great (if not greater) than that of literary fiction.

*duplicate*