It has seemed to me throughout my life that most of my friends and relatives are not heavy readers. That means there are more days when they are not reading a book than they are reading one. A heavy reader often is into several books simultaneously. Many strong readers tend to read only a few types of books, such as romances or mysteries. Sometimes people wonder how many minutes a day strong readers read. Quite a bit of research says that the average adult reads for 25 minutes a day. My impression is that those who read less tend to reach 25 minutes at most while heavier readers tend to read that much or maybe twice as much most days. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has information about Americans in general and many subpopulations such as students and senior citizens. 25 minutes a day is not really much time, compared to eating and watching tv.
A question that comes up from time to time is how much a reader remembers after reading something. I think remembering is somewhat irrelevant to reading. It is a process of the mind and occurs when the mind runs into something exciting, in either a good or bad way. So, screaming headlines that taxes will double next year while the climate will be much drier and wetter will likely be remembered. One of the most memorable excursions I read about what is retained by students is The Unschooled Mind by Howard Gardner.
It seems to me more natural and more accurate to say that the adult reader can look at reading as exploration and experiences, with retention of material given a very much lower place of importance. Taxpayers are can be curious about what publicly supported schools are teaching students and how much of it is retained. But the question of what should be remembered is a tricky one. Even trickier is the question of how long material should be kept in mind.
I have had pretty good memory for book title, author and publication date. Those three elements plus name of publisher were important for quoting sources and we learned in grad school that knowing something was only of use if we could quote the source. (PhD's don't actually need to know - they just need to know where the information was). I am confident that some ability to recall comes naturally from what excites or interests me.
I am reading McCall Smith's "What W H Auden Can Do for You", an analysis of the influence of that poet on the author. The author has just finished explaining the situation of psychoanalysis in Morocco and in Argentina. What the heck is such material doing there? In a sense, doesn't matter, since it is interesting to be swept from Auden's England to those places quickly by a civilized and friendly person while sitting in my wintry house. Actually, Auden and others were fascinated by the idea of a professional listening to one's feelings and history and the author's experiences in bookstores in Morocco and Buenos Aires touches on the history of the subject there.
I say read to experience and explore and remember whatever sticks by itself.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
