America's Decline in Literary Reading: Grappling with Technology's ...

This paper was
written as a final
assignment for
Dr. Van Hillard’s
“Reading In,
Reading Out”
course, which
explored the social
response to several American publications.
My paper explores the response
of many critics to Reading at Risk, an
NEA report that warns of the decline in
literary reading. I have always enjoyed
reading and literature, but as an engineer
I also have an interest in and love
of technology. Most cultural critics
attached a negative connotation to
technology when discussing the
decline in reading. I tried to give a
more balanced look at this decline by
examining some of the positive effects
technology has had on the literary culture.
My original ideas for this paper
came from an after-class discussion
with Dr. Hillard about cultural shifts to
new forms of technology. This discussion
sparked my interest and eventually
evolved into my final paper.
Is it fair to mark all forms
of digital media and modern
technology as detrimental
to reading? Are the common
assumptions that digital
media is diluting American
literary culture valid? What
are the implications of this
shift from books to electronics,
and can reading survive
this transition and perhaps
even grow from it?
America’s Decline in Literary
Reading: Grappling with
Technology’s Effects on the
Print Culture of Literature
Andrew Ofstad
In June of 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts released Reading At
Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. The breadth of this study
was enormous, the results shocking to many. Data collected from 17,000
adults over a 20 year span showed that the reading of literature in America
is in sharp decline. The study revealed that only 46.7% of the American
population reads works of literature, down from 54% in 1992 and 56.9% in 1982.
And America is not just reading less than it used to but is experiencing an accelerated
drop in literary reading among all ethnic, economic, and age categories. Not surprisingly,
this report was met with a flood of editorials, opinion pieces, and critical
essays that showed concern, alarm, and even disgust over this trend. Perhaps not
surprisingly, most of the editorials seemed to attribute the sharp drop in reading to
the equally sharp rise in the prevalence of digital media, and especially computers
and the internet. Although these accusations were not supported with extensive
data, they remain, at least at first glance, quite persuasive. Indeed, it sometimes
seems fairly intuitive to say that reading literature simply can’t compete with using
new forms of electronic media, such as television, videogames, and the internet, that
now dominate our textual culture. Thus defensive reactions to Reading at Risk by
writers such as Andrew Solomon, Michael Dirda, and Jonathan Franzen show concern
over this shift to technology. The assumption is made by each that the growing
popularity of technology is inherently bad and a threat to American culture. But
what exactly is each author referring to with broad unspecific terms such as “technology”
and “digital media”? And further, just what is meant by “reading,” and on
what grounds do critics distinguish between the value of reading literature and the
value of interacting with technology?
The NEA report suggests that the amount of time spent watching television has
little effect on how much one reads (unless this amount is four hours per day or
more). Further, television, and vigorous television viewing predated the noticeable
drop in reading. For these reasons, I am going to exclude TV from the terms “technology”
and “digital media.” Beyond this, there is no indication of what the critics
mean when referring in such ambiguous terms to technology. Is it fair to mark all
forms of digital media and modern technology as detrimental to reading? Are the
common assumptions that digital media is diluting American literary culture valid?
What are the implications of this shift from books to electronics, and can reading
survive this transition and perhaps even grow from it?
It is sometimes hard to distinguish why reading literature is held up by many cultural
critics as inherently preferable to other forms of entertainment and media. In
the opinion of most authors and literature aficionados, reading requires deep
thought and active thinking, while most forms of electronic media are passive in
nature. Andrew Solomon is one such critic who briefly criticizes the nature of electronic
media, but touches on an interesting point:
41

42
The electronic media...tend to be torpid. Despite
the existence of good television, fine writing on
the internet, and video games that test logic, the
electronic media by and large invite inert reception.
One selects channels, but then the information
comes out preprocessed. (1)
Solomon asserts that electronic
media offer passive forms of entertainment
but also admits that the
internet, videogames, and some
forms of “good television” don’t
necessarily fit this description. He
gives slight credit to a few virtues of
electronic media, but perhaps not
enough credit where credit is due. It
is true that television is a passive
form of entertainment. The viewer
typically sits in front of the screen
and absorbs, as Solomon would put
it, “preprocessed” information that
for the most part doesn’t require
much thought. Conversely, reading
requires active engagement and submerges
the reader into an alternate environment
where the imagination takes control, only guided by
the words on the page. Is this active participation,
this submersion in an environment mediated by
print, what the critics find most important about
reading? If so, some videogames can be shown to
involve this same form of intellectual submersion.
Many role-playing games require the player to solve
intricate puzzles in order to advance through a deep
plot. Much as books capture our concentration and
bring us to a different place within the mind, video
games can bring the player into an active and dynamic
world where thought is required to solve complicated
puzzles. The player isn’t simply passively viewing
as is done when watching TV; he or she is actively
participating in an expansive environment where
reasoning and quick decision making predominate.
Obviously some games require more thinking than
others. Some games are more akin to sports, testing
reflex and concentration but not necessarily logic.
However, other video game genres such as role-playing
and strategy games can be shown to promote logical
thought, and therefore stimulate intelligence. In
fact, a recent study done by the Economic and Social
Research Council shows that videogames, if played
in moderation, may improve intelligence in young
children (“Do Video Games,” 2004, para. 1).
From my childhood, I can distinctly remember
being lost in the complicated and mysterious world of
Myst, an immensely successful videogame from the
early nineties. In order to reveal the secrets of the
“mystifying” environment, players had to solve puzzles,
some involving mathematics, others involving
clues picked up along the path. These are puzzles that
Granted, video games
may not offer
precisely the same
experience as books,
and certainly they
should not replace
books. Rather, they
offer another way
to enter into an
imagined world.
I never would have encountered outside of a
videogame, and I have found that such games made
an impression on my thinking at a young age.
Granted, video games may not offer precisely the
same experience as books, and certainly they should
not replace books. Rather, they offer
another way to enter into an imagined
world. They are similar to
books in this respect but offer tradeoffs
in the type of thinking that is
required. When reading, the imagination
is called upon to translate
words into ideas, concepts, and
images. Playing a videogame requires
active problem solving and,
though to a lesser extent, imagination
and conceptualization. Perhaps
some forms of digital media that the
critics are so ready to condemn have
virtues akin to those associated with
literary reading.
Nevertheless, backed by statistics
from Reading at Risk suggesting that
those who read literature are more likely than those
who do not to participate in social activities and even
politics, Solomon goes even further in his critique,
characterizing the rise of technology and the subsequent
decline in reading as a political detriment:
Without books, we cannot succeed in our current
struggle against absolutism and terrorism. The
retreat from civic to virtual life is a retreat from
engaged democracy, from the principles that
we say we want to share with the rest of the
world....So the crisis in reading is a crisis in
national politics. (2)
But does the internet truly result in a “retreat
from engaged democracy” as Solomon says? Could it
not be, rather, an incredible asset to democracy?
Solomon may be right in saying that reading is
important to democracy, as reading is fundamental
to communication and knowledge of our world. But
is there really a difference between the civic and virtual
life that Solomon speaks of? Civic life has made
our country what it is today, and is invaluable to any
society. But why can’t “virtual life” be civic life?
Assuming that Solomon is talking about the internet
when he refers to “virtual life,” what would he make
of political blogs, message boards, and a myriad of
independent news organizations that allow many
Americans to voice an opinion and that provide a
variety of resources from which information can be
drawn? The internet is a democratic bazaar that
informs the citizenry, can potentially give nearly
every individual a voice, and provides a medium for
diverse discussion of political issues. Take for
instance the insight gained from the Iraqi who
blogged throughout our strike on Baghdad, or the

The internet is a
democratic bazaar that
informs the citizenry,
can potentially give
nearly every individual
a voice, and provides a
medium for diverse
Customer reviews,
personalized book lists,
and an almost unlimited
supply of books give
the user something of a
virtual “social” environ-
ment in which great
books can quickly and
easily be found, ordered,
and read. Internet
booksellers can provide,
as Solomon would put
it, an online “kinship in
the sharing of books” (2).
high school students who started a political
blog in which people from around the world
discussed matters of politics. Contrary to
Solomon’s suspicions, these resources are
engaging average citizens in democracy in a
way never before possible rather than causing
a “retreat from engaged democracy.” Just as
books are vital to our “struggle against absolutism
and terrorism,” these digital sources of
information can provide us with information
that is drawn from a multitude of voices from
diverse backgrounds. Since the internet is
uncontrolled, it is somewhat of a refuge from
absolutism and gives the user an international
arena in which diverse ideas can be exchanged
freely. In a sense, what could be more democratic
than the internet?
It is somewhat commonplace for scholars
to criticize, often times unfairly, forms of
“digital media.” But regardless of the benefits
that the internet, video games, and other
forms of digital media offer, the fact remains
that literary reading is important to our society.
Literary reading is a primary way in
which ideas and new perspectives are communicated
and tested, and it engages the reader
in imaginative, speculative thought. Without
discounting the tremendous value of literary
reading, then, is it somehow possible for literary
reading and digital media to coexist, and
could digital media perhaps even promote literary
reading?
One way many believe literary reading can
be made more popular is by figuring it as a
communal endeavor. Solomon, for instance,
offers this strategy:
We need to make reading, which is in its
essence a solitary endeavor, a social one as
well, to encourage the great thrill of finding
kinship in shared experiences of books.
We must weave reading back into the very
fabric of the culture, and make it a mainstay
of community. (1)
Although reading is on the decline, social
reading has been an effective tool in helping
to re-popularize literature. The success of
Oprah’s book club shows how communal
reading can get more people reading fiction,
even if this fiction isn’t always of the highest
quality. Similarly, I think that technology can
help to popularize literature. Internet booksellers,
such as Amazon.com, have already
begun to create an online “book society” with
their marketing strategies. Amazon.com
builds a database of the books the consumer
has purchased and, based on these books,
suggests other similar books a particular
reader might enjoy. Further, it links together
people with similar tastes and allows for the
exchange of reading lists. Customer reviews,
personalized book lists, and an almost unlimited
supply of books give the user something
of a virtual “social” environment in which
great books can quickly and easily be found,
ordered, and read. Internet booksellers can
provide, as Solomon would put it, an online
“kinship in the sharing of books” (2).
Much as civic life can be extended to virtual
life, a form of social reading can be extended
to cyberspace. Juliet Gardiner, in her article
“Reformulating the Reader: Internet
Bookselling and Its Impact on the Construction
of Reading Practices,” elaborates on
the internet bookselling phenomenon:
What is happening in Internet bookselling
...is an attempt to commodify another
social practice, the so-called ‘word of
mouth’ phenomenon by which ‘personal
recommendations’...are ‘posted’ in simulacra
through readers’ star ratings and
reader reviews that accompany the description
of the book in question. (167)
Amazon devised a revolutionary e-commerce
strategy for selling books by creating
such a social word of mouth environment
online. Upon entering the Amazon webpage,
consumers are greeted with books geared
towards their specific tastes, usually based on
recommendations and book lists of other readers
with similar tastes. It can be hard to ignore
such books, books which may be new releases
by a favorite author or bestsellers of a preferred
genre. If one continues on to the product
page of a specific book, it is often easy to
be enticed into a purchase. A five star rating
system and a list of usually quite detailed user
reviews can be enough to convince one to buy
a book, even if there was no intention of buying
such a book beforehand. This virtual social
environment, something of a word of mouth
phenomenon, is Amazon’s prime bookselling
strategy. And this strategy obviously works, as
evidenced by Amazon’s rapid growth from a
small garage business in 1995 to one of the
world’s largest retailers. And whatever its profit-based
motives may be, Amazon doesn’t just
get books sold; it gets books read. For me personally,
Amazon has been an amazing catalyst
for reading and more reading. Growing up in a
tiny town in Montana left me with two
options for obtaining books: I could either go
to our poorly stocked library and try my luck
on an old book from a limited selection, or I
could drive 70 miles to the nearest bookstore. 43

44
Internet bookselling has given me, and countless others
in the same situation, access to virtually every
book in print. Further, Amazon seems to lead me to
great books with every visit and has sparked interest
in new books that are now favorites. The fact
remains, however, that the literary reading has
declined across all segments of the American population
despite the increased accessibility the electronic
bookstore provides.
So what can be done about this? Can literary
reading itself somehow become integrated into modern
technology, and if so would it result in more
people reading? E-books, as they are called, are electronic
books that can be downloaded to computers
and read on a screen. Portable devices, called Ebook
readers, come in a small ergonomic package
about the size of a book and allow the user to download
e-books and read them on an LCD screen. This
allows for quick access to a multitude of e-books
through online book sellers, and hundreds of these
books can be stored on a single device. Pages are
turned by the press of a button, and different features
allow for larger font, different page orientation,
and a number of other aesthetic settings.
Despite these conveniences, however, e-books have
experienced little success. Perhaps their poor reception
can best be explained by looking at Sven
Birkerts’ essay “States of Reading,” which describes
how a reader can be “teased” by the material aesthetics
of reading a novel:
You turn the book over in your hands, you scan
the sentences on the back of the jacket....Of
course, this circling of the book, too, this reading
around it before reading inside it, is part of the
pleasure in a new book....Calvino guides his
chapter to conclusion, the conclusion being, in
effect, the reader’s excited haste to turn the page
to begin. (101)
Many, myself included, find pleasure in the physical
form of the book. Examining the cover, skimming
the back, and turning the pages of a good book somehow
add to the experience of reading. Digital forms
of reading simply do not offer this experience and
hence have not become popular among readers.
Reading words on an LCD screen and pressing buttons
to turn virtual “pages” simply do not compare to
the material, aesthetic experience of reading an actual
book. Maybe this is because digital forms of literature
seem to have less “substance.” We don’t conceive of
them as material objects—physical manifestations of
ink on paper—but as mere digital representations of
words—light projected on screens. For many of us,
words must be printed and therefore available to the
senses to seem weighty or even “real.” Perhaps it’s
important for us to feel the smoothness of the page, to
hear the slight crackle of its turning, to in some cases
smell the mustiness of the paper or the faint scent of
ink. An actual book seems like something you can
digest, the heft of the pages subconsciously feeling
like something substantive to feed to your mind, the
materiality of paper facilitating the very notion of
reading as consumption.
The very idea of reading is modified somewhat by
these new technologies. Are different forms of reading,
in particular reading from paper as compared to
reading from an electronic device, important? Does
the reading that literary scholars refer to only include
reading paper books, or would they be happy if people
read light produced by a screen rather than light
reflecting off of paper? Personally, I think that different
forms of reading don’t actually make a substantial
difference and that some day electronic language will
seem normative and natural to us. Indeed, our old
notions of reading may become so fully rooted in a
new technological context that books as we know
them could become obsolete. This will not necessarily
represent a shift in the literary culture but only a shift
in the medium of reading, a movement from paper to
the screen. I think that for many traditional readers
such as Sven Birkerts, reading is automatically
assumed to be something that is best accomplished
with ink and paper. Reading at Risk only counted
reading from printed books, which shows that the
NEA too put emphasis on the physical form.
It is easy to see why many readers dislike technology,
since they usually believe it to be responsible for
the decline in literary reading. Michael Dirda even
regards the web as largely an “invention of the devil”
(1). This is the attitude shared, at least to some
extent, by many writers, especially those who are
accustomed to old ways and are not familiar with
technology. A shift towards technology, however, is
inevitable. The internet has resulted in a wealth of
information, and offers the possibility of a new form
of electronic reading that could vastly increase the
distribution of literature. Still, reading on a screen for
most people in our time will never replace reading
from paper. Times change and often long set cultural
practices such as reading face natural resistance to
the rapid advancement of technology. It is interesting
to think about the shift from the spoken word to the
written word, and from the written word to the
printed word, as well as the roadblocks that surely
accompanied those changes. When the printing press
was invented, how many longed for the aesthetic
value of the hand written manuscript and complained
that the printed word, a reflection of the
newest technology of the times, simply wasn’t the
same. It is natural for people to resist change, but it is
equally natural for people to eventually adjust to
change and come to accept it. It’s not hard to imagine
an essay 50 years from now, in which the Sven
Birkerts of my generation talks about the aesthetic
values of some future form of reading. Perhaps such

an author would talk about the anticipation of pressing
a button to turn the page, the excitement of
downloading a book from the internet, or the warm
glow that is cast from a book screen.
I agree with many critics who are disappointed
with the decline in reading. Literary reading is a vital
part of our culture. However, I find the arguments of
these cultural critics somewhat limited. Since they
are authors, it would be in their own self interest if
everyone read and nobody used modern technology.
Literary and journalistic discourses typically overlook
the advantages of digital media and use it as
the commonplace culprit for the decline in reading.
They are eager to mark reading mediated through
print as the best and right way to gain intelligence.
But I believe that this shift to new forms of communication,
and perhaps a shift in our culture as a
whole, isn’t as bad as many make it out to be. And if
reading is slow to move to an electronic form, perhaps
new technology can at least be used to help
give reading’s popularity a boost. As new technologies
develop, I think it is important that writers
embrace them as a way to popularize reading.
Rather than stubbornly looking at technology as an
unapproachable problem, strides should be taken to
use digital media to encourage reading in our
increasingly techno-oriented society. In short, I
would give many technology-weary cultural critics
the often heard advice of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join
‘em.” Perhaps this wouldn’t completely fix the lack
of reading in America, but in my opinion, it would
certainly be a step in the right direction. �
Works Cited
Reading words on an LCD
screen and pressing
buttons to turn virtual
“pages” simply do not
compare to the material,
aesthetic experience of
reading an actual book.
Maybe this is because
digital forms of literature
seem to have less
“substance.”
Birkerts, Sven. Readings. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press,
1999.
“Do Video Games Make You Smarter?” IQTestNow. 20
Nov. 2004. .
Franzen, Jonathan. How to Be Alone. New York: Farrar,
Straus, and Giroux, 2002.
Gardiner, Juliet. “Reformulating the Reader: Internet
Bookselling and Its Impact on the Construction of
Reading Practices.” Changing English 9 (2002): 161-168.
Michael Dirda, “As I Live and Read: One Book Lover’s
Plea for a Literati Nation.” The Washington Post.
25 July 2004: B1.
Solomon, Andrew. “The Closing of the American Book.
The New York Times 10 July 2004: 17.
45