"To Read or Not To Read"

A couple of years ago the National Endowment for the Arts published a study of reading habits in America. Subtitled "A Question of National Consequence", the study concludes:

• Americans are spending less time reading.
• Reading comprehension skills are eroding.
• These declines have serious civic, social, cultural, and economic implications.

I too find the decrease in time reading to be of concern. However, it seems to me that reading is an intermediate value. A more fundamental question is whether Americans can find, evaluate and utilize information better now than they could in the past.

The Internet changes society. It makes sense that people spend time on the Internet that they would once have spent reading. Indeed, people might well spend less time internalizing information since now they can far more quickly and easily access the information that they need from the web. On demand information reduces the need for an internally stored stock of information.

Ideally, of course, people should focus on analysis and decision making quality more if they are memorizing less. Perhaps that is happening, and Americans note frequently that people in developing nations (which are less "wired") have better trained memories and spend more time in school memorizing answers and less time learning how to analyze information.

Of course, this is all relative. Polls and indeed election results indicate that too many Americans don't make good decisions based on solid analysis of high quality information.