“People Don’t Read Anymore,” says Steve Jobs
Here’s a quote Steve Jobs made during his keynote speech at the Macworld 2008 Expo about competitor Amazon’s Kindle ebook reading device:
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore… The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
According to the Daily Salty’s reading statistics, Jobs is correct:
* 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school
* 42% of college graduates never read another book
* 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
* 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years
* 57% of new books are not read to completion.
* Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
A little bit horrifying, isn’t it? Reading is critical for a well-formed mind in a way that iPods / iPhone / PCs / Wiis / PS1/2/3 / PSP / DS / TV / Cinema are not; to lose that is to lose entire generations in a media-induced dark age.
| This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 6:47 pm and is tagged with us adult population, keynote speech, college graduates, reading device, iphone, amazon, steve jobs, macworld, new books, competitor, ebook, expo, generations, little bit, psp, bookstore, cinema, adults, statistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback. |
And it’s a shame people don’t read as much. Books contain worlds we can safely visit without risk to ourselves!