Book Reading and Americans’ Political Attentiveness

ABSTRACT

Polls conducted for the Times Mirror/Pew Research Center between 1994 and 2006 reveal that less than twofifths of adults reported reading a book for pleasure the day before being interviewed. Young people are less likely than their elders to say they read a book “yesterday,” and exposure to higher education does not make much difference. Reading books has salubrious effects on political attentiveness; reading’s impact is statistically significant even when other key predictors of how closely people follow news of politics are taken into account.