Has texting influenced people's reading habits? How about their answers?

[Jeff Wampler]

What an interesting question.

I don't think that it has changed anyone's reading habits. There have always been people who like to read and will read books. As a previous answer stated, and I'm paraphrasing, literate people will always read and books will never be replaced.

It's true that more and more people are reading less. I don't think this has to do with texting. Probably technology in general. I'll bet that if you look at when television was invented, reading has probably been on a steady decline ever since.

And with more and more people getting their entertainment through their computers and cell phones, it's no doubt that reading a physical book would drop on the priority list.

I would say that I think people are reading more because they read text messages. Many times people who don't read books will read text messages. So in that since, text messaging is increasing readership.

But reading is usually a recreation or entertainment activity. And there are so many other things that are "easier" to do, i.e. watch tv, movies, play video games (there's another point...video game technology is outrageous and takes a lot of people's time), spending time on facebook, or time answering other people's questions (doh!), instead of picking up paper and ink and actually using your brain and reading it.

Actually using your brain to read and think is a pretty hard activity...it gets easier the more you do it, but it is in a lot of ways harder than actual physical manual labor.

So what is my point of all my ramblings...here it is:

Are people reading less? Probably. I wouldn't be surprised.

Has this to do with texting? Not at all. I can't identify a link between the two. If anything, people are reading more (because people who don't read books are reading text messages).

Anyway...good question...very interesting...can't wait to see how the rest of the peanut gallery responds.