Featured Posts
  • Romney The Liar

    Romney The Liar

    The lies roll off the man's lips like music off Yo-Yo Ma's cello. Both are virtuosos - one a cellist, the other a liar. A partial list. Bush had nothing to do ...

    Read More

  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    Happy Friday. The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. "Barack Obama supports same-sex marriage. Mitt Romney doesn't even support same-sex car pools." –David Letterman "The head of ...

    Read More

  • Another Unexceptional Republican Claims Obama Is Not An American

    Another Unexceptional Republican Claims Obama Is Not An American

    Republican Rep. Mike Coffman at a Saturday afternoon fundraiser in Colorado. I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that. But I ...

    Read More

  • Idiot Quote of the Day: The “Gayer” Obama

    Idiot Quote of the Day: The Gayer Obama

    Rand Paul: Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his [Obama's] views on marriage could get any gayer. We won't call Rand cynical. Ignorant, bigoted asshole is more fitting. An adult using ...

    Read More

  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    Happy Friday. The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. "President Obama came out with approval of same-sex marriage. He said that over the years, he has ...

    Read More

  • What The Hell Is The Problem With Gay Republicans?

    What The Hell Is The Problem With Gay Republicans?

    I've never understood Log Cabin Republicans - gay conservatives who give their support to a homophobic political party that derides their sexuality and refuses to grant them equal rights under ...

    Read More

  • Obama – Same-Sex Marriage and Doing The Right Thing

    Obama - Same-Sex Marriage and Doing The Right Thing

    Finally. “I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own ...

    Read More

  • Another Day, Another Vote – Indiana, NC and Wisconsin

    Another Day, Another Vote - Indiana, NC and Wisconsin

    Election roundup: Indiana. As polls forecast, the Tea Party's efforts to cleanse the GOP of any impure conservatives has Dick Lugar out and teabagger Richard Mourdock in. Mourdock is the new Republican ...

    Read More

  • ‘Romney – The Man Who Saved The Auto Industry’ and Other Fairy Tales

    'Romney - The Man Who Saved The Auto Industry' and Other Fairy Tales

    There are lies...and then there are lies. My own view, by the way, was that the auto companies needed to go through bankruptcy before government help. And frankly, that’s finally what ...

    Read More

  • A Madman and Fox News

    A Madman and Fox News

    From the papers captured last year at Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout comes this. Like any public figures, bin Laden and his advisers were mindful of the media. Adam Gadahn, one ...

    Read More

  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. Happy Friday. "Today Mitt Romney visited a firehouse here in New York City. Of course, he was disappointed ...

    Read More

  • New GOP Logo

    New GOP Logo

    ___ Follow MarioPiperniDotCom on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. .

    Read More

  • Can Obama Be Swift-Boated?

    Can Obama Be Swift-Boated?

    It happened to Kerry. Can it happen to Obama? Nope says Margaret Carlson. Obama’s belief system -- in that hopey-changey business and the post-partisanship thing -- has been altered by reality. ...

    Read More

  • Quote of the Day: The Gay Republican

    Quote of the Day: The Gay Republican

    Sullivan: What do Republicans call a gay man with neoconservative passion, a committed relationship and personal courage? A faggot. Exactly right, but then could one expect anything different from a political party that ...

    Read More

  • Christian Pastor: Fixing Gay Is Like Squashing a Cockroach

    Christian Pastor: Fixing Gay Is Like Squashing a Cockroach

    And they claim that atheists are immoral? The ugly side of religion shows its face once again. The words below were spoken at a Sunday sermon by Sean Harris, a pastor ...

    Read More

  • GM Alive, bin Laden Dead

    GM Alive, bin Laden Dead

    It's been fun watching conservatives and Romney twist themselves into pretzels trying to undo Mitt's past words on GM and bin Laden. Romney, April 2007: It’s not worth moving heaven and earth ...

    Read More

  • Republicans Are The Problem

    Republicans Are The Problem

      In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, a couple of scholars from liberal and conservative think tanks, discuss the state of American politics. We have been studying Washington politics and ...

    Read More

  • Marco Rubio – Just Another Weasel

    Marco Rubio - Just Another Weasel

    Romney's VP-in-waiting, Marco Rubio, is perfecting the conservative sleaze play. He has proposed his version of the Dream Act in which people who entered the country illegally as children will be ...

    Read More

  • Obama’s Move Forward

    Obama's Move Forward

    Beyond the rhetoric, the political BS, the lies - that is, the concerted effort by the right-wing noise machine to distort and misinform at every opportunity - is the very ...

    Read More

  • Romney’s Etch A Sketch Fun Time Has Arrived

    Romney's Etch A Sketch Fun Time Has Arrived

      It was never a matter of 'if'...only of 'when'. Two constituencies that President Obama is holding onto about as strongly now as he did four years ago are voters under 30 ...

    Read More

The Evolution of Reading

Fascinating study of how Americans gather information.
.
6a00d83451c45669e2012876461df6970c-500wi

.

The use of different media has changed dramatically over time. It is a cliché that reading is in decline. But on the other hand we get considerable information from the Internet, which is a heavy print medium. Do we really read less? We show this evolution in Figure 6 Evolution of Reading. Conventional print media has fallen from 26 percent of INFOW in 1960 to 9 percent in 2008. However, this has been more than counterbalanced by the rise of the Internet and local computer programs, which now provide 27 percent of INFOW. Conventional print provides an additional 9 percent. In other words, reading as a percentage of our information consumption has increased in the last 50 years, if we use words themselves as the unit of measurement.

___

To receive email notifications of new posts from MarioPiperniDotCom, click on Subscribe.

.

Comments

  1. ME says:

    Thus creating UTUBE society. Wonder how warm and cuddly that concept is? Dissemination of information by non-experts is a scary thing.

  2. JT says:

    I find the ratio of phone between the 80′s & this decade surprising. In my experience it seems that the Internet has all but supplanted the telephone let alone personal interaction but then of course that could just be my experience.

    Very interesting study Mario.

  3. ME says:

    @JT I feel the same way. It has taken the personal interaction away and made it easier and safer to stay within these pages.

  4. janine says:

    I have a different experience. The internet has made communication somewhat richer and wider of reach. I can talk to people across the globe via skype and yahoo voice for little or no cost. Twitter, texting, instant messaging, Email, Facebook, and other social networking sites facilitate staying in contact with family and friends daily (whereas before such interactions were at holidays and sometime lunches and trading voice mail messages).

    The access to world news is immediate and enriching. I can read the news, from home and abroad, on the internet.

    My nieces and nephews have access to the world at their fingertips. They are more well versed in world politics and events than I was at their young age.

    U Tube has a lot to offer as well, beyond the funny little vids (of course I could watch funny animal vids all day long but…) there are educational vids, historical vids…. the amount of information is endless.

    All this has not lessened my personal interaction but expanded said interaction. Most of us humans are social creatures after all, we interact with co-workers, friends and family. Oft times in person and oft times via the internet.

    Communication is interaction. I say communicate however you are able and however it will be best received by the person with whom you are communicating.

  5. janine says:

    P.S. the greater concern should be the rise of television for information consumption. That certainly decreases personal interaction.

  6. Frances says:

    Social networking is just another way I can feel guilty about not keeping in touch with my friends. :D

  7. Melody Brynne says:

    Janine, I met you here! If it hadn’t been for Mario inviting me to guest blog here, we would not have experienced the relationship we have now! I treasure what we have and I am forever indebted to the internet for bringing us together! I also met my late husband and my current husband on the internet! My life has been forever enriched, changed and blessed by the internet! Also, the internet has made it possible to search for more real books online and my husband and myself have active accounts buying books plus Janine honors me with incredible choices! I will never stop reading! I’m sure there are many like me who will use the internet to simply find more life-altering books to make our lives better! Thanks Mario, for being here and for challenging us to keep well-informed!