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Books

Are Adults Forgetting How To Read? (economist.com) 129

One in five adults in developed nations demonstrate primary school-level literacy and numeracy skills, according to an OECD study of 160,000 people across 31 countries released December 10. The decennial Survey of Adult Skills reveals declining literacy rates over the past decade despite rising secondary education completion.

Finland topped rankings across all tested areas -- numeracy, literacy, and problem-solving -- while Japan, Norway and the Netherlands performed above average. The United States showed declining scores, with Chile, Italy, Poland and Portugal reporting high proportions of below-average performers. The study found widening skill gaps between top and bottom performers, with declining scores concentrated among lower-performing adults.

Are Adults Forgetting How To Read?

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  • Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrDiablerie ( 533142 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @09:19AM (#65016611) Homepage
    From what I have observed the majority of millennials and younger donâ(TM)t recreationally read.
    • From what I have observed the majority of millennials and younger donâ(TM)t recreationally read.

      From what we have observed with regards to speak-it-to-me technology, I’m wondering what constitutes “reading” these days. At any age.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Hmm. I have noticed that Amazon increasingly offers me audio-books for normal ones I just bought. As I have bought zero audio-books in 25 years or so of being an Amazon customer, it cannot be anything I am doing.

        • I dislike audio books because I can read far faster than the audio book reads it to me :|
          Drives me crazy.

          • You can crank up the speed on most platforms.

            I'm with you, though. I'd rather just read at my own potentially variable pace. Maybe I think more about some parts than others for example. And I am a speed reader so if I increase the rate to match my reading rate it's going to sound like an auction.

            The books that I prefer to hear are autobiographies or similar read by the author, when the author is an engaging reader. Stephen King's book on writing was great that way.

          • by TWX ( 665546 )

            I dislike audiobooks because of mispronunciation by the reader. This seems like something that should be caught by the production staff and corrected.

    • by taustin ( 171655 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @10:11AM (#65016765) Homepage Journal

      From what I have observed in decades of retail work, the majority of people of any age don't read anything, ever, even if their life literally depends on it.

      "Where does it say that? You should have a sign!"

      "You mean, like the one you're literally leaning on?"

    • Older people read, though? My bet is more on the sitting in front of the TV department.
      • by jbengt ( 874751 )

        Older people read, though?

        Well, anecdotally, I am an older person and I've read about 60 books in the year since I retired.
        More seriously, most people regardless of age do not read or write much, but those that grew up with Facebook, X-Twitter, Tik-Tok, etc. seem less capable of paying attention when trying to read long passages, not that I'm much better.

      • Older people read, though?

        Sure we do, we read slashdot. And by read, I mean we misread the first two words and get angry about it. Also fuck you I'm not old.

      • Some don't watch TV at all ( it's a waste of time considering what is considered entertainment these days )

        Given the option, I would throw the TV into the trash and replace it with a giant aquarium. However, others
        in the home do still watch it so it remains.

        I have no idea how many books I've read thus far this year alone.

        I get them via Kindle now because my bookshelf is completely out of room for new books :|

      • I have an alternative hypothesis. These people have always had low capability to begin with, but the schools lied and passed them through the system anyway. It's only now that it's being measured honestly that it has been noticed. Anecdotally, some of the stories my uncles have told about high school when they were growing up make this worth considering. So few people went on to college back then that a bullshit high school diploma wouldn't be detected quite as easily. Anything that isn't regularly exercise
  • Paywalled (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @09:19AM (#65016615) Journal

    The article is paywalled, so it's really hard to discern what this data means. The "forgetting how to read" sounds sketchy. Is there a specific segment of adult population whose reading skills have declined from some previous study? IE is the current 30-40 year old range performing worse now than they did 10 years ago when they were the 20-30 year old group?

    The part of the article I can read says "people aged 16 to 65", so are those in the younger range, like 16-20, the ones bringing down the average because they are now included in the study? That's an entirely different thing that people "forgetting how to read".

    • These kinds of studies are always suspect. To the extent that the data itself is even accurate, usually it can be explained by demographic factors. For example, more homogeneous societies do better. Why? Because the bad homogeneous societies, like say Botswanaland, do badly, but the good ones like Finland or Japan, do well. Heterogeneous societies, like the US, which are a mixture of Botswanaland, Japan, and Mexico, do somewhere in the middle, and exactly where in the middle is determined by the coeffic

  • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @09:23AM (#65016623) Homepage

    It blows my mind how many people where I live (Canada) don't have library cards. When I was a kid, our trips to the library were a highlight. I loved browsing and picking books and then reading them at home for pleasure.

    The library is a huge treasure-trove of reading material, and it's free. I still go to the library every couple of weeks and pick out 5-6 books. I can't imagine not reading for pleasure.

    The decline of educational standards, especially in North America, is going to have an economic effect. We won't be able to compete if we don't have educated people who value learning.

    • "It blows my mind how many people where I live (Canada) don't have library cards."

      The equivalent of a library card today is a Kindle Unlimited subscription.

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        A Kindle Unlimited subscription is not free.

        • Free from driving. Free from having to interact with other people.

      • by SirSlud ( 67381 )

        it's depressing to me how people think those two things are equivalent.

        the *actual* equivalent is the ability to use your library card to borrow ebooks - a service most libraries in the modern world offer - seeing as you've paid for your local library system to purchase books. it seems rather silly to me to think "the same thing" as a library card is to give Amazon *additional* money for something you're already paying for.

        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Lots of people pay for convenience. If you get depressed over that you're going to be depressed a lot.

          Borrowing books, electronic or otherwise, from libraries is great. However, if you want to read something popular you're probably going to have to wait. If you want to read something the library doesn't have, you're probably going to have to wait, and often visit the library in person to request an inter-library loan.

          And some people just like to own their books.

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            Borrowing books, electronic or otherwise, from libraries is great. However, if you want to read something popular you're probably going to have to wait. If you want to read something the library doesn't have, you're probably going to have to wait, and often visit the library in person to request an inter-library loan.

            Might want to check that. My library lets me place holds on books - ebooks, physical books, audiobooks if they're already checked out. They even tell me how long the queue is. I can do it right

            • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              Might want to check that. My library lets me place holds on books - ebooks, physical books, audiobooks if they're already checked out. They even tell me how long the queue is. I can do it right on their website.

              And this helps you read them right away how?

              And if it's a book they don't have, they can check other libraries nearby and do the interlibrary loan from the same web page.

              When it's my turn, they send me an email. If it's a physical book, I have to go in to pick it up, else, I can check it out on the w

    • "Education standards" is misframing the problem.

      We have so many fucking standards: standards for teaching practices, standards for student performance, standards for school structure, standards for testing. And they're standards we're not meeting because of declines in effective teacher pay, increases in punitive bureaucracy, socio-economic distress eroding the typically-educated middle class, and a fuck-ton of vague damage caused by the internet.

      There are pockets within the failing countries where perform

    • I love to read as well. Although, I've intentionally cut back from the book a day I did in 2023 (253 so far this year that I bothered to rate).

      But driving to the library and walking around stacks of books? Bah. My Kindle has its own 6,000+ library of books that I've downloaded when they were free on Amazon. I'm gradually plowing through them. And occasionally I find my tastes have changed and I expunge some that are still waiting to be read. That's all my Amazon Prime subscription is good for in my opinion

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        I walk to my library; I don't drive. It's 1.2km away. And browsing the stacks of books is part of the pleasure. For me, it makes the act more intentional and visceral than browsing the Internet for books.

        • by narcc ( 412956 )

          I flagellate myself as I slowly crawl to a monastery on the top of a mountain where I carefully copy manuscripts using a hand-cut quill by candlelight. For me, it makes the act more intentional and visceral than wandering over to a nearby library lazily browsing through stacks of mass-produced books.

    • The library is where the homeless people all go to watch porn.

      I think I'll stick with buying books.

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        The library is where the homeless people all go to watch porn.

        Well, you must live in a pretty terrible place. My local library is a great place; not only does it have books, but it has meeting rooms, presentations and community activities. You can also borrow musical instruments and use the 3D printers in the library's maker space. It's a real community hub.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      As to libraries, same here, although I switched to buying when I discovered that non-translated books are so much better.

      As to educational standards in North America, they have never been good. What has, so far, propped up the situation is importing academics. But that is bound to get harder and harder at least for the US with everything there slowly (or probably faster from January 2025 on) going to shit.

    • I had and used a library card extensively when I was a child. As an adult though I have rarely been to a library. I've been fortunate enough to be able to just buy the books that I want to read. My wife who is more frugal than myself still uses the library apps to check out audio books and such, but I can't be bothered. Between having to wait for the book to be available, and then having to complete it in a set amount of time, I'd just rather pay and skip all that. I'd love to better fund libraries, perhaps

    • I haven't had a library card since 1990 or so. These days, there is so much available to read without going to a library, why would I? It's kind of like going to the movie theater. It's a hassle, and the experience isn't great. I can watch a movie, or read a (Kindle) book, in the comfort of home, without fighting traffic to get to a library.

  • OK, so 1 in 5 adults read on first grade level.... but how many are better than that and how many are worse than that?

    Or do I lack reading skills?

    • I think it's saying the bottom 20 percent of adults have literacy and numeracy skills at no more than a primary-school level, whereas the other 80% are higher.
    • You do lack reading skills. Primary school goes beyond first grade.

  • They wrong (Score:5, Funny)

    by rknop ( 240417 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @09:50AM (#65016681) Homepage

    I ARE READ GOOD

  • by olmsfam ( 1399493 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @09:59AM (#65016715)

    I told my young Nephew if he wants real world superpowers in this day and age, just get good at reading, as it brings good reading comprehension.

    As an IT professional, nearly 90% of the calls I get in a day stem from a lack of comprehension of the prompt. (mostly because of immigration, and English as a second language syndrome but we wont go so far as to be racist here).

    Lawyers are modern wizards who take language to new heights, and are paid well.

    Prompting Ai is all about relations to words.

    Even in traditionally physical work like tradesman, knowing how to reference material guides, specs and digest words will put you ahead of your contemporaries.

  • A former wrestling CEO is going to be leading the department of education. https://www.npr.org/2024/11/19... [npr.org]

    I'm sure everything will be fine.

  • by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keirstead . o rg> on Monday December 16, 2024 @10:58AM (#65016927)

    In a world where almost all information consumed is digital, I refuse to believe that adults are losing ability to read. Rather, I suspect that if you dive into this, it has more to do with how reading comprehension tests work - you can't pass them just by reading bite-size snippits of text, you need to read long passages and then answer questions on them.

    As such, what adults are losing is not "the ability to read" - they are losing the ability to focus enough to consume longer pieces of information. They would have no problem reading text messages or short news stories and tweets, but they would never be able to comprehend a multi-page magazine article, let alone a book.

    • by jbengt ( 874751 )

      As such, what adults are losing is not "the ability to read" - they are losing the ability to focus enough to consume longer pieces of information.

      A distinction without a difference.

      • As such, what adults are losing is not "the ability to read" - they are losing the ability to focus enough to consume longer pieces of information.

        A distinction without a difference.

        I disagree. People are impatient, but I wager more people read more words today than they did 30 years ago. If anything, it's our constant reading that has made us lose patience with bad writing. So yeah, they may not be able to comprehend as well some New Yorker Magazine circle jerk or pretentious NYT weekender piece about the art world 50 years ago...but that's just impatience with shitty writing.

        An analogy could be made with food. Give me yummy food and I'll eat yummy food. If I had all the Chip

    • "digital" info sharing is more in the from of listening to podcasts or watching videos... Little reading necessary for either.

      • by brunes69 ( 86786 )

        Not really. The vast majority of social media is still text based.

        Even on Instagram, the main purpose of the photo is to get people to read the post, and everyone does so.

        And half the people who watch a TikTok are doing it on silent mode and reading the captions.

    • I'd go a bit further and say the ability to express clearly and concisely through the written word has declined dramatically through the decades, well before literacy rates started to plummet (with the usual suspects of post-modernism and overly involved testing regimes leading the charge)

      I mean it is fine and good to single out reading comprehension, but as anyone who has had to read through any instruction manual written in the past few years, the ability to organize complex ideas into a coherent whole is

  • by dslbrian ( 318993 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @11:20AM (#65016973)

    It is not just reading. Writing skills have degraded also. I don't think this is necessarily due to the individual though. The environment of today promotes this.

    As an example, look at handwriting skills. Everything today is typed - keyboards on computers, touchscreens on phones. People learn how to type efficiently but if you hand them a pencil and paper and ask them to handwrite something you get Homer Simpson chicken scratch out.

    Another seemingly benign one is spell and grammar checkers. When the computer corrects what you type as you type it, what happens is you associate incorrect muscle movement with the correct result. This applies to many of the "helpful" features that default-on in word processors.

    "AI" is the same thing on the next level. Now you don't even need to formulate sentence structure, you just need to dump a semi-coherent jumble of ideas into a prompt to get a coherent paragraph out. So of course one would expect the ability to directly create a similar paragraph is going to degrade.

    I think this is a fundamental flaw in a lot of these assistants. One can easily extend it to other things also. Someone who drives an automatic cannot drive a stick-shift. A person who gets chauffeured around in a self-driving car will drive like crap if they ever need to take the wheel. A pilot who lets AI handle a self-flying plane will not be able to fly as well. It goes on and on.

  • by KlomDark ( 6370 )
    Is are parnts lernin?
  • You want us to start reading the articles, no?

    This isn't my first rodeo, nosirreebob. Nice try, though.

  • And cause a dumbing down of learning and content

    Keep in mind, Xerox PARC, when they introduced pointing devices and GUIs, was attempting to make computing to developmentally challenged children.

    Their widespread use has turned the world into exactly that.

    Wanna know why we have dumb voters? Now ya know.

    • Xerox PARC, when they introduced pointing devices and GUIs, was attempting to make computing to developmentally challenged children.

      But what they actually did with it was word processing [digibarn.com].

  • Reading recreationally is a choice and reflects (in some small part) education and emotional/intellectual development. Did you grow up eager to learn new things?

    I wonder what the level of recreational reading is (relative to the general population) with the slashdot community... We tend to be educated and intellectually 'busy'.

    I can't speak for anyone else, but I always have a stack of books waiting for me to read. I even installed a wall-light to make reading in bed easier.

  • by ElizabethGreene ( 1185405 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @12:08PM (#65017149)

    "Forgetting how to read" in this context means reading at or below a 6th grade level. If you've read "A wrinkle in time", that's a 6th grade level book (256 pages, no pictures).

    The authors of this study choose to use the word "illiterate" to describe anyone at or below this reading level. I strongly object to this redefinition. The authors of a paper on literacy, presumably including at least one English major, should understand that words have meanings.

  • I have always considered reading to be the gateway drug to critical thinking. And if a news item is ONLY available as video of a talking head chatting about a problem with no associated text it becomes easy to skip. Typical news folks are 60 to 80 words per minute -- a fraction of reading rates. And no way to double back if a later statement conflicts with a former. And it is sad how much of the daily news feed is talking heads.

  • by Voice of satan ( 1553177 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @12:39PM (#65017241)

    Non paywalled and all. With commentary and the data.

    https://www.oecd.org/en/about/... [oecd.org]

    I thank my adorable parents for reading to me in bed, buying me comics then buying me gamebooks to make me graduate from comics then vanilla books. I also thank my primary school teachers for paying attention to their pupils and knowing their tastes and being able to advise us books we would enjoy in our compulsory reading sessions. I am also thankful for these children books for kids 7-10 which while being for kids had sometimes mature themes like suicide or science fiction. Without traumatizing us it made us think.

  • If I got a phone call about taking such a test, I'd hang up the moment that I realized it was not a real business or personal call, which is typically the moment they ask for me by name. Who then is the type of person who would take this test? Not the smartest, that's for damn sure. It's some meth head who got promised 20 bucks for their time.

  • Needs to shorter

  • Since "primary school-level literacy" is being thrown out in a negative context, I'd like it clearly defined exactly what that means. Personally, I could read just fine when I was 10 years old, so is this really as bad as it sounds? Next, I'd like to understand how people are having issues reading, when in reality it's pretty difficult to use the internet effectively if you can't read. Is this really about people not being able to read, or is this really just bookworms angsty that most people don't read
  • The biggest issue is the "achievement gap" between top and bottom scorers. Just as the wealth gap is widening between the "haves" and "have nots" so too is the education gap. The difference between struggling public schools and the very best ones in countries like the U.S. staggering. It's not uncommon for a top high school to have average entering students that are 4-5 years ahead of those from an underperforming one. My spouse did teach for America at a school where entering 9th graders needed instruction

  • by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @02:27PM (#65017511)

    "One in five adults in developed nations demonstrate primary school-level literacy and numeracy skills". This claim is ludicrous and not close to believable. The only possible way this is true is with a contorted definition of "primary school-level literacy and numeracy skills" that is impractical. Maybe the problem with the study is that the people carrying out the study are part of the 80% that are illiterate.

    It doesn't help that the linked article is paywalled. But with such a silly claim, it's probably best to prevent easy access to the article.

  • We've been unable to read anything longer than a couple of sentences for years already. It's about time the rest of the world caught up!

    On the other hand, we do *write* a lot. Opinions, mostly, and sometimes a little logic mixed in. I'm not sure the rest of the world will catch up on that score, they're too busy posting short videos.

  • Do primary school students read at "primary school level"? What does that mean, exactly?

    My issue is that the 1-in-5 number doesn't jibe with what I see around me. Are most people able to read a dissertation? Probably not. But can they read children's books or store tags or brochures? Most of them probably can (in developed nations anyway, which is the focus of the study).

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