Young adults reading more

According to a recently released report from the National Endowment for the Arts, literary reading has risen among adult Americans for the first time in over a quarter-century. “Literary” reading refers to the reading of any novels, short stories, poems, or plays in print or online. After decades of declining trends, the report, Reading on the Rise, documents a decisive increase among virtually every group measured in this comprehensive national survey. The most significant growth has been among young adults (ages 18-24), the group that had shown the largest declines in earlier surveys. This group went from a 20 percent decline in 2002 to a 21 percent increase in 2008–a startling level of change. During their high school years, this group was the target of the largest literary initiatives in the NEA’s history, a possible explanation for at least some of the change. Read the press release, or download the full report (16-pp. pdf).