According to the 2004 survey by the National Endowment for the Arts called “Reading at Risk,” less than half of Americans read literature for pleasure.   The national decline in reading culture has been seen most notably in America’s youth.   The study also noted that the number of literary readers fell 10 percent between 1982 and 2002, but now the rate of decline is increasing.

These statistics may reflect what you’ve already been noticing or hearing about from your teachers and parents for a long time: reading culture in America is on a definite decline, heading towards what some fear is an ultimate demise.   It may have been translated into other forms of media or replaced entirely by new types of entertainment but pleasure reading, especially for young Americans, is becoming a thing of the past.

The most obvious culprit behind the decline in literature reading is the modern entertainment that seems to captivate most Americans: film, television, Internet, video games and so on.   Professor Scott Elliott of the Whitman English Department brought up the “Three Screens Theory,” which addresses the loss of interest in literary fiction due to its inability to compete with the combined forces of entertainment screens.

“This idea,” said Elliott, “operates on the assumption that people have only so much leisure time to devote to a certain number of activities and that they’re opting for the instant gratification they can find on the screens instead of finding the time and devoting the effort it takes to read books.”

The decline of literature also reflects our image-oriented culture.   Far more people would choose to experience a story on a screen than in a book.   The most successful books today are almost guaranteed to be made into movies.   While this   could be just another money-making strategy, it says something about our willingness to produce images in our imagination as opposed to having them fed to us.   Sadly, this explanation suggests a kind of mental laziness.   While hours of reality television shows and Xbox gaming does engage one’s brain in some ways, it is no substitute for the intellectual sustenance provided by a good novel.

Specifically among American youth, we can understand the decline of reading as an inability for literature to fit into the current pop culture scene.   Today’s money-obsessed world bombards us with media that dictates the paramount importance of sexiness, popularity, wealth and power.   Being well-read or intellectual has no place in this modern “cool” culture: If you can quote Robert Frost, you’re dubbed a nerd.

Lastly, one of the most profitable things the media can sell the American public is fear.   Constantly being on the lookout for the next catastrophic disease or terrorist attack makes this a fear-obsessed culture.   The rising popularity of books that tell you how to make money, how to eat, how to stay informed and safe and how to live confirm that literary fiction has lost its value as a source for understanding the world and human beings.   It is replaced by CNN and the new wave of “state of the world” non-fiction books that emerged after 9/11.

While we can comprehend why literature is being phased out, it is much harder to predict what its consequences will be for American culture.   If, in the end, we only lose a few brain cells and still get our daily news, we will still have lost a precious art form and our society will be that much dimmer.   So, on an optimistic note, I’d like to remind everyone that all books not for classes are always 20 percent off for students at the Whitman Bookstore.   Happy reading.