Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
My point is that while there are more people to read, there is less aggregate time to read in. TV, videogames, surfing the Web (like what we're doing now), more available music, more available movies, ect., all cut into an individual's reading time. In 1939, most of those didn't exist.
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I think the "distractions" argument is overstated, myself. Sure, they didn't have videogames in 1939... but they had amusement parks. Not many movies... but plenty of plays. Baseball games. Town meetings. Roller rinks. County fairs. Bowling alleys. Concerts in the park. There have always been lots of ways to get entertained, and books have shared that playing field ably for all of that time.
In addition, people in general have more
free time than they did 50+ years ago... more time to be entertained, because work doesn't occupy as much of their lives as it used to.
Hey, there are almost 7 billion potential readers out there! If books aren't as popular today, I submit it's because a lot of content isn't compelling enough to people, and what is out there isn't being marketed well (if at all)...
not because readers are too distracted.
Publishers spent too many years operating either as detached elites, or as lazy mass-market pushers, instead of really trying to develop the business to keep up with the times. If publishers had kept up, and were consequently better at modern production and marketing (which includes e-books), reading could be more popular than TV today (how much broadcast drek do you watch? Really?).