Study: Rumors of Written-Word Death Greatly Exaggerated

Americans’
print consumption has declined since 1960, but words delivered by
computer have more than made up the difference. (Image courtesy of the
University of California at San Diego’s Global Information Industry
Center)

Conventional wisdom holds that YouTube, videogames, cable TV and
iPods have turned us away from the written word. Glowing streams of
visual delights replaced paper and longhand letters shrank to
bite-sized Facebook status updates, the theory held.

Conventional wisdom, in this case, is wrong.

A large-scale study by the University of California at San Diego and
other research universities revealed what some of us have long
suspected: We’re reading far more words than we used to as we adopt new
technologies.

Wired summarizes a University of California at San Diego study