To read or not to read...

The National Endowment for the Arts recently published To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence. Although this report claims not to be "an elegy for the bygone days of print culture," it kinda reads like one: "58% of middle and high school students use other media while reading...this multitasking suggests less focused engagement with a text." That most teenagers can't read two pages without texting or IMing a friend is hardly revelatory. However, the data is compelling enough to make Lila want to shut down the computer and focus on a good book:

All of the data suggest how powerfully reading transforms the lives of individuals—whatever their social circumstances. Regular reading not only boosts the likelihood of an individual’s academic and economic success—facts that are not especially surprising—but it also seems to awaken a person’s social and civic sense. Reading correlates with almost every measurement of positive personal and social behavior surveyed. It is reassuring, though hardly amazing, that readers attend more concerts and theater than non-readers, but it is surprising that they exercise more and play more sports—no matter what their educational level. These cold statistics confirm something that most readers know but have mostly been reluctant to declare as fact—books change lives for the better.