I just wanted to jump in here. Everyone speaks of the decline of reading. I don't agree. I think it's
content that has changed. My 17 year old son, and his many friends, aren't really reading a lot of books. But watching him and his friends, I notice they are reading a
lot of blogs and forums.
They are always looking up game info, stats, wikipedia, movie news, etc. They also IM constantly. I know everything there is to know about
Halo 3 (video game) because he is always reading and quoting to me.
So reading novels has declined, but time spent reading in general seems to be the same or even more. I see this in his friends too. They tend to read a lot of content if the content is something they have an interest in.
Book reading though isn't what they enjoy. I would even venture to guess that they read more than the generation before. Before video games, everyone had activities outside (a good thing!). Now teenagers spend much more time at the computer "reading" stuff than being outside.
Good thing? Bad thing? I'm not sure. I mean, sure I read a lot when I was younger, but it was all sci-fi and pulp stuff. So it wasn't what most would call quality reading--but I loved it. Same with my son reading Halo stuff. They read as much or even more, just not the same stuff in the same way.
