Before radio, movies and the internet, reading fiction was the world's number one form of entertainment. People all over the globe made authors like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Jane Austen some of the biggest celebrities of their day. But as soon as television took over, fiction became an inconsistent industry. In fact, sales and readership had been on the decline for more than twenty five years. That was until a study sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts revealed that reading fiction was suddenly popular again. Okay, perhaps that's a bit of an overstatement. What it actually said is that readership is increasing for the first time in a quarter of a century.
Why the sudden turnaround? Well, it seems that people were so overwhelmed by the good news that none of them bothered to ask. So, we will ask the question. Why is fiction reading on the rise? As strange as it seems, the rise may be due to a new technology. Yes, we know. Technologies are created to replace existing technologies, which put them in a bit of an adversarial position. But it seems to us that the internet has actually encouraged increased readership as much as it has made removals to France so much easier. How has it done this? For starters, a single simple device called the electronic reader has been largely responsible for the increase in book sales over the last few years. These devices let users download electronic books directly from the internet. In 2009, sales of e-books tripled and they are expected to triple once again in 2010. One reason that these devices are so popular is that most young readers grew up on the internet, which means that they grew up with electronic media. This simple fact has led to an increase in the use of e-books for younger users.
|
