![]() ![]() The proportion fell to fifty-four per cent in 1992, and to 46.7 per cent in 2002. ![]() In 1982, 56.9 per cent of Americans had read a work of creative literature in the previous twelve months. ![]() The results, first reported by the N.E.A. You wouldn’t think so, however, if you consulted the Census Bureau and the National Endowment for the Arts, who, since 1982, have asked thousands of Americans questions about reading that are not only detailed but consistent. If you didn’t read the fine print, you might think that reading was on the rise. And, this August, seventy-three per cent of respondents to another poll said that they had read a book of some kind, not excluding those read for work or school, in the past year. The question was even looser in 19, when the General Social Survey found that roughly seventy per cent of Americans had read a novel, a short story, a poem, or a play in the preceding twelve months. In 1978, a survey found that fifty-five per cent of respondents had read a book in the previous six months. Pollsters began asking the question with more latitude. In 1955, only seventeen per cent said they were. In 1937, twenty-nine per cent of American adults told the pollster George Gallup that they were reading a book. A recent study has shown a steep decline in literary reading among schoolchildren. ![]()
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