New York Times to Steve Jobs: “You Are Wrong”

Timothy Egan of the New York Times tackles the statement Steve Jobs made last month about the decline of reading.  I covered Jobs’ quote here, and a lively debate ensued in the comments.  It’s been our most popular post by far, probably because what El Jobso said is pretty controversial.

You should definitely read his whole piece, but here are some of Egan’s money quotes:

Reading is something else, an engagement of the imagination with life experience. It’s fad-resistant, precisely because human beings are hard-wired for story, and intrinsically curious. Reading is not about product.

Next year, business may be down, and several publishers may merge, and certainly more of the poor, beloved independent bookstores will cling to life support. Steve Jobs will stroll into a room filled with breathless acolytes and pull a must-have trick from his bag. We’ll oohh and ahhhh about it, then go back to lives where a good book still holds more power than anything with a screen. Power to transport the reader to another world. Power to get inside somebody’s else mind, to live their story, to be moved.

Last year, a survey for the Associated Press found that a much smaller number — 27 percent — had not read a book lately, which means nearly three-in-four have read a book. [...]  The more compelling statistic was rarely mentioned in news accounts of the A.P. story: the survey found that another 27 percent of Americans had read 15 or more books a year. That report documents a national celebration.