Sad facts of the day

by on July 7, 2006 at 4:58 pm in Data Source | Permalink

"80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year."

"58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school."

"…more people probably read Engadget than all of the top 50 science blogs combined."

Bill Simmons (a good link for NBA fans) thinks that Allen Iverson would have been the greatest soccer player ever to try the game.

You’ll find all of those over at the ever-excellent kottke.org.

1 Dan July 7, 2006 at 5:27 pm

I am skeptical of some of this data and cannot track it to any source.

Certainly we know that many people buy and read few books.
A few years back a study commissioned by the American Booksellers
Association found that half of all U.S. households do not buy a
single book all year. But I think the stuff Kottke cites may be
far too pessimistic, and the ultimate source appears to be a defunct
web site.

2 Diego Armando Maradona July 7, 2006 at 5:56 pm

Bill Simmons said “Allen Iverson would have been the greatest soccer player ever — better than Pele, better than Ronaldo, better than everyone. I think this is indisputable, actually. “.

It is a shame Bill is not a commentator on ESPN or ABC for the world cup. With those comments, he might even make Marcelo Balboa sound like a good and insightful commentator.

His soccer comments regarding Allen Iverson and Shawn Marion just reinforces my sad view that American sports experts do not understand soccer.

3 Todd Lippincott July 7, 2006 at 6:10 pm

Actually, I found it to be a fairly amusing thought experiment to try to figure out which star athletes from football and basketball (or baseball I suppose) could have been world class soccer players. The Shawn Marion crossover actually seems like it could be an outstanding idea (explain to me why you think Shawn Marion couldn’t be a fantastic goal keeper?). I think it’s pretty clear that Simmons is exagerrating on purpose with the comment about Iverson in order to by funny…

For the record, I’d love to have seen what Reggie Bush could have done as a striker if he had grown up playing soccer instead of football. How about Michael Vick for that matter? Marshall Faulk?

Or reverse it, what soccer players might make outstanding basketball or skill position football players. How about Thierry Henry at wide receiver?

Either way, Marginal Revolution linking to Bill Simmons…do you want my head to explode?

4 Jacqueline July 7, 2006 at 6:43 pm

I am not surprised by the books statistics. When I worked at a bookstore years ago we frequently had families come in and try to exchange gift certificates they’d received for cash because they’d say, “We don’t read!”

Personally I am doing my part to keep the book industry afloat despite 80% of the population not buying its products. Quicken tells me I spent almost $4000 on books over the past year, and as my income goes up I’m sure so will my book consumption. 🙂

5 Joe July 7, 2006 at 8:15 pm

Well, couldn’t far more families be borrowing books from the library instead of buying them?

6 John Thacker July 7, 2006 at 10:49 pm

And the same page of statistics claims that the US is responsible for one-third of all book sales. It also gives statistics which claim “the number of books sold is not increasing” and other statistics noting that the number of books sold increased year to year. In fact, the linked page of book statistics has a massive number of contradictory statistics– perhaps that’s the point.

7 Noumenon July 7, 2006 at 11:57 pm

If you look at the National Assessment of Adult Literacy you have a core of 93 million adults who are not going to be buying any books:

————

As already mentioned, 30 million adults had Below Basic prose literacy. These adults can do no more than the most simple literacy activities.

Sixty-three million had Basic literacy. This means they are able to perform simple literacy activities such as understanding information in a pamphlet for prospective jurors.

Ninety-five million had Intermediate prose literacy. This means they can perform moderately difficult activities such as finding information in reference materials.

Twenty-eight million had Proficient literacy. This means they can perform complex and challenging literacy activities such as comparing viewpoints in two different editorials.

8 Max July 8, 2006 at 9:44 am

Perhaps the south is mostly too hot during the summer to enjoy a book-read 😉

But seriously, I think we have a problem here, because many people decide to read either newspapers (no book) or to read on the internet, nowadays. Perhaps we have to include newer medias in those statistics?

9 Michael Cain July 8, 2006 at 11:52 am

Two thoughts about the purchases:

35 years ago, when I was in high school, a mass-market paperback cost less than an hour’s labor at minimum wage. Today, many of them cost considerably more than an hour at minimum wage.

Is public library usage up or down in any systematic fashion? I admit that I am a regular visitor to my local library, driven in part by the cost of actually purchasing the books. And not just for fiction: inter-library loans give me access to the campus libraries of three major universities.

10 Mr. Econotarian July 8, 2006 at 6:45 pm

Why buy a book? Everything good is online. Heck, this blog is about 60% of the good stuff to read.

11 Marty Busse July 9, 2006 at 6:04 am

This isn’t my observation (I don’t know the name of the person I can credit for this), but take a gander at this bit:

One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.

How do they graduate from high school and not gradute from high school at the same time?

I’m thinking that Snopes.com will take a look at this within a few days and declare it to be false.

12 Jason Malloy July 9, 2006 at 2:14 pm

Sure you can. You can “believe” NEA studies you find on the Internet. The problem is everyone spreads around these random, uncited numbers they find on some webpage. I’m supposed to be worried about the horrible state of the man on the street, but I’m more worried that university professors don’t know any better.

13 Slocum July 9, 2006 at 10:40 pm

Somebody needs to do some research about BS-detectors. As soon as I read those “80% of families buy no books”, and “58% of Americans read no book after high school”, my BS-siren was going off at full volume. So how can somebody as smart as Tyler not have *his* alarm go off?

14 Noah Yetter July 10, 2006 at 11:50 am

This is because US public schools teach students to hate reading. Simple as that.

15 linda October 9, 2006 at 7:35 am

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