The End of
the Written Word?
People in the developed world are spending less time reading books
and more time interacting with visual mediatelevision,
Podcasts and video gamesthan ever
before. According to the National Assessment of Education, the
proportion of
17-year-olds who read for enjoyment "almost every day" fell
from 31% to 22% between the years 1984 and 2004. Meanwhile, television
watching continues to rise about 3% year after year, and almost 87% of
kids aged 8 to 17 now have a video game player in their home.
What do
these evolving trends mean for the future? In this special section,
Mind Set! author John Naisbitt, along with Michael Rogers, William
Crossman, Edward N. Luttwak, Joe Lambert, Peter Wagschal, and Christine
Rosen, explore what our emerging visual culture means for the written
word and the future of civilization.
Patrick Tucker is the assistant editor of THE FUTURIST and the
director of communications for the World Future Society.
