alt Hacker News> Yes, I'm pretty sure those 50%+ of people who "didn't read a single book" did it to avoid all the less than high quality books,
You misinterpret, the implication of quality is that having read a book is not indicative of value, someone could have a high metric "I read 10 books a year" but they're all short, low quality romance novels. Whereas someone could clam "I read no books a year" but they're a grad student with no time for novels.
by the "books read" metric the former would score much better and appear more literate.
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>You misinterpret, the implication of quality is that having read a book is not indicative of value, someone could have a high metric "I read 10 books a year" but they're all short, low quality romance novels. Whereas someone could clam "I read no books a year" but they're a grad student with no time for novels.
I'd argue thataA grad student "with no time for novels" would still be if not functionality illiterate, at least uncultured, in my book (pun intended).
But that aside, such going "case by case", is not helpful. This is an aggregate statistics. If 50%+ of the population "didn't read a single book" this doesn't break down to lots of grad students with no time for reading or similar cases, but more like a major decline in functional literacy.
Having them reading "10 mediocre books a year" would have been a major improvement.
Reading low quality romance novels likely still puts you at reading somewhere around a 6th grade level.
> someone could have a high metric "I read 10 books a year" but they're all short, low quality romance novels
That person is still functionally literate. If they can get through a short novel, they can focus on e.g. a contract or draft law. If they’re only watching short-form content online, they may not even be able to follow long-form journalism.