Reading at Risk presents the results from the literature segment of a large-scale survey, the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, conducted by the Census Bureau in 2002 at the request of the National Endowment for the Arts.

This survey investigated the percentage and number of adults, age 18 and over, who attended artistic performances, visited museums, watched broadcasts of arts programs, or read literature. The survey sample numbered more than 17,000 individuals, which makes it one of the most comprehensive polls of art and literature consumption ever conducted.

Reading at Risk extrapolates and interprets data on literary reading and compares them with results from similar surveys carried out in 1982 and 1992. The survey asked respondents if, during the previous twelve months, they had read any novels, short stories, plays, or poetry in their leisure time (not for work or school). The report establishes trends in the number of adults reading, listening to, and writing literature by demographic categories of age, race, region, income, and education. This report also compares participation in literary activities with other leisure activities, such as watching movies and exercising.

Reading at Risk provides an invaluable snapshot of the role of literature in the lives of Americans. It comes at a critical time, when electronic media are becoming the dominant influence in young people’s worlds. Reading at Risk adds new and distressing information to the discussion. It contains solid evidence of the declining importance of literature to our populace. Literature reading is fading as a meaningful activity, especially among younger people.

If one believes that active and engaged readers lead richer intellectual lives than non-readers and that a well-read citizenry is essential to a vibrant democracy, the decline of literary reading calls for serious action.

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Research Division Report #46
June 2004
National Endowment for the Arts
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20506-0001
Telephone: 202-682-5400

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ...................................................................................................................................Page vii
Executive Summary ..............................................................................................................Page ix
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................Page 1
2. Literature Participation in 2002 ........................................................................................Page 3
3. Factors in Literary Reading ..............................................................................................Page 9
4. Trends in Literature Participation, 1982 – 2002 ..........................................................Page 21
5. Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................................Page 29
Appendices.............................................................................................................................Page 33

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Preface
R eading at Risk is not a report that the National Endowment for the Arts is happy to issue. This comprehensive survey of American literary reading presents a detailed but bleak assessment of the decline of reading’s role in the nation’s culture. For the first time in modern history, less than half of the adult population now reads literature, and these trends reflect a larger decline in other sorts of reading. Anyone who loves literature or values the cultural, intellectual, and political importance of active and engaged literacy in American society will respond to this report with grave concern.

Reading at Risk is not a collection of anecdotes, theories, or opinions. It is a descriptive survey of national trends in adult literary reading. Based on an enormous sample size of more than 17,000 adults, it covers most major demographic groups – providing statistical measurements by age, gender, education, income, region, race, and ethnicity. Conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and spanning 20 years of polling, the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the data source for Reading at Risk, is as reliable and objective as any such survey can be. While not every measurement of reading was built into the study, the report provides so much data in such detail that it constitutes a comprehensive factual basis for any informed discussion of current American reading habits.

The key results of the survey are condensed in the “Executive Summary,” which follows, but the report can be further summarized in a single sentence: literary reading in America is not only declining rapidly among all groups, but the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. The concerned citizen in search of good news about American literary culture will study the pages of this report in vain.

Although the news in the report is dire, I doubt that any careful observer of contemporary American society will be greatly surprised – except perhaps by the sheer magnitude of decline. Reading at Risk merely documents and quantifies a huge cultural transformation that most Americans have already noted – our society’s massive shift toward electronic media for entertainment and information.

Reading a book requires a degree of active attention and engagement. Indeed, reading itself is a progressive skill that depends on years of education and practice. By contrast, most electronic media such as television, recordings, and radio make fewer demands on their audiences, and indeed often require no more than passive participation. Even interactive electronic media, such as video games and the Internet, foster shorter attention spans and accelerated gratification.

While oral culture has a rich immediacy that is not to be dismissed, and electronic media offer the considerable advantages of diversity and access, print culture affords irreplaceable forms of focused attention and contemplation that make complex communications and insights possible. To lose such intellectual capability – and the many sorts of human continuity it allows – would constitute a vast cultural impoverishment.

More than reading is at stake. As this report unambiguously demonstrates, readers play a more active and involved role in their communities. The decline in reading, therefore, parallels a larger retreat from participation in civic and cultural life. The long-term implications of this study not only affect literature but all the arts – as well as social activities such as volunteerism, philanthropy, and even political engagement.

What is to be done? There is surely no single solution to the present dilemma, just as there is no single cause. Each concerned group – writers, teachers, publishers, journalists, librarians, and legislators – will legitimately view the situation from a different perspective, and each will offer its own recommendations. The important thing now is to understand that America can no longer take active and engaged literacy for granted.

Reading is not a timeless, universal capability. Advanced literacy is a specific intellectual skill and social habit that depends on a great many educational, cultural, and economic factors. As more Americans lose this capability, our nation becomes less informed, active, and independent-minded. These are not qualities that a free, innovative, or productive society can afford to lose.

Dana Gioia
Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

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