WE MAY BE THE LAST GENERATION THAT READS FOR PLEASURE

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The Pew Research Center reported last week that nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a single book in the past year. 

As in, they hadn't cracked the spine of a paperback, fired up a Kindle, or even hit play on an audiobook while in the car. 

The number of non-book-readers has nearly tripled since 1978.

 In 1978, Gallup found that 42 percent of adults had read 11 books or more in the past year 

(13 percent said they'd read more than 50!).

 Today, Pew finds that just 28 percent hit the 11 mark.

The number of books an American reads tends to be closely associated with his or her level of education.

College enrollment last year fell by nearly half a million.

 Between 2012 and 2013, the Census Bureau reported, 463,000 fewer people were enrolled in college.

In fact, this is the second year enrollment has fallen by that much, 

bringing the two-year total to 930,000 fewer college students, bigger than any drop before the recession.

Our natural response is to deny.  I am sure the dinosaurs did a lot of that before the end.

The decline could have grim consequences as people tune out books, tune in popular culture and become less socially and civicly engaged.
 

It's fairly obvious why teenagers today aren't devoting more time toward reading:

  

There are simply more and cooler ways to distract oneself than in the previous generations.

How many teenagers today don't have both a cell-phone and an i-Pad?

  

Very few.

When faced with the decision of whether to read a novel or dive into social media, a majority of teens today are going cyber-diving.

After many years of a childhood that didn't have interactions with books on their own, 

they are forced to read the school’s regardless of the topic and develop a negative attitude toward them.

This hatred of books lasts into teenage years and leads many to never read again.

The future built by the current teenage generation will be one where books and reading 

as well as knowledge and reasoning becoming less important if they continue their ignorance toward literacy.

This scares me and causes me to think that indeed there will be a plateau of human intellect if not a decline with few advances in all subjects.

In a dangerous world filled with stress, the key to survival is memory.

So says the author of The Executioners (later known as "Cape Fear"), John D. MacDonald.

In his last published work before he died in 1986, MacDonald set out to inspire us with Reading for Survival.

This thirty-one page essay was published in 1987 by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

It was also sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book in Fort Lauderdale.

The essay takes the form of a series of conversations between his fictitious protagonist, Travis McGee, and his friend known only as "Meyer", an economist, teacher and lecturer.

Meyer guides us through his version of the evolution of communication beginning with our earliest ancestors' dependency on memory in order to live in the wilderness,

recognize signs of nature and the animal kingdom, and then share that knowledge with future generations.

Meyer asks, "Can one examine his own life without reference to the realities in which he lives?"

What about the non-reader, the person who wants to believe that just because he isn't well informed there is no harm?

He's the one "born every minute" that signs up for that variable interest loan with a dubious lender.

MacDonald warns us of the teacher who promotes himself as the translator. 

Beware the translator who interprets the information for you.

Think for yourself, he suggests.  And to do that you must read, must be informed.

He warns of the terrible isolation of the nonreader:

 his life is without meaning or substance because he cannot comprehend the world in which he lives

Education, literacy, reading, thinking and remembering are MacDonald's prescription for enduring.

He leaves us with a warning from Mark Twain, 

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."

EXCERPT:

           

“Sorry,” Meyer said. “I was just…”

           

“I know. Thinking.”

          

 He took another swallow. He walked over and sat by the coffee table and put his drink near the lantern.

           

“Strange thing about an idea,” he said. 

“You can never tell whether it is composed of relationships you should have seen before. Most ideas are merely structures—

things built on bits of knowledge and insight you already possess. 

If the knowledge you possess is in error, the structure will be flawed.”

          

 I sat across from him. “What’s this one about?
           

“Maybe the stress of survival.”

         

 “I’ve been stressed now and then .”

          

 “I am thinking of the long range. And if Man actually has a long range remaining to him.”