Statistically speaking....
I saw a statistic today that absolutely horrified me and stopped me dead in my tracks. Or vice versa.
It said that 42% of college graduates will not read another book after graduation.
I have no idea where this statistic comes from, or how reliable it is. It was in an OCLC newsletter.
It seems so egregiously outrageous to me, I simply cannot take it seriously.
So, I asked one of my colleagues at work what he thought. His response: “I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘books.’”
Say what???
I know he was trying to be amusing.
I am distressed by this statistic. I, who majored in the social sciences and know, firsthand, that there is nothing scientific about the social sciences and that you can get statistics to say just about whatever you want them to say, am rather at a loss. Am scared even.
How can people go through life – I don’t care whether they have gone to college or not! – without reading books??? Not reading. How is this possible? How can you be a thoughtful person – and I don’t care if you have a PhD! – if you don’t read???
I don’t think you can be.
And in this day and age, there is no excuse. There are books on CD, audiobooks, computer download books. You are not limited to just books in print. You can LISTEN to a book, have it read to you by someone else for criminey’s sake, just like a giant story time on the highway, as you drive to and from work. I do it. I listen to books on CD during my commute – whenever NPR news is not on – and this has probably doubled the number of books I can “read” in a given year.
I still read books the old fashioned way. It takes me longer now, as I usually only get to read in bed at the end of a very long day and, invariably, fall asleep after only a few moments. But I DO read. And I do read many, many books per year, as well as countless magazines and newspapers.
I cannot imagine life without these things. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri purportedly said: “I read to understand life; I write to understand life.”
That just makes so much sense to me.
If you are not reading, are you thinking, stewing, weighing, considering, pondering, or contemplating?
What are you doing?
Hey, really, like ... get real!
Are you even, like, a human being?
It said that 42% of college graduates will not read another book after graduation.
I have no idea where this statistic comes from, or how reliable it is. It was in an OCLC newsletter.
It seems so egregiously outrageous to me, I simply cannot take it seriously.
So, I asked one of my colleagues at work what he thought. His response: “I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘books.’”
Say what???
I know he was trying to be amusing.
I am distressed by this statistic. I, who majored in the social sciences and know, firsthand, that there is nothing scientific about the social sciences and that you can get statistics to say just about whatever you want them to say, am rather at a loss. Am scared even.
How can people go through life – I don’t care whether they have gone to college or not! – without reading books??? Not reading. How is this possible? How can you be a thoughtful person – and I don’t care if you have a PhD! – if you don’t read???
I don’t think you can be.
And in this day and age, there is no excuse. There are books on CD, audiobooks, computer download books. You are not limited to just books in print. You can LISTEN to a book, have it read to you by someone else for criminey’s sake, just like a giant story time on the highway, as you drive to and from work. I do it. I listen to books on CD during my commute – whenever NPR news is not on – and this has probably doubled the number of books I can “read” in a given year.
I still read books the old fashioned way. It takes me longer now, as I usually only get to read in bed at the end of a very long day and, invariably, fall asleep after only a few moments. But I DO read. And I do read many, many books per year, as well as countless magazines and newspapers.
I cannot imagine life without these things. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri purportedly said: “I read to understand life; I write to understand life.”
That just makes so much sense to me.
If you are not reading, are you thinking, stewing, weighing, considering, pondering, or contemplating?
What are you doing?
Hey, really, like ... get real!
Are you even, like, a human being?
posted by delta at 12:14 AM
2 Comments:
wasn't there a celebrity like paris hilton or someone recently who claimed ot never have read a book IN HER LIFE?
I would DIE.
I remember coming across some similarly awful statistic. I have personally known two people who assert that they only read Readers' Digest books. Something to do with the brevity.
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