I work with several extremely intelligent software developers who “do not read books”. Now, they probably read the equivalent of hundreds of pages every day online and in the course of their duties, but they are adamant that they don’t read books.
It’s interesting to consider how many of the upcoming generations will trend this way and what that means to skills such as storytelling.
Perhaps we're already seeing some of that with Hollywood's endless reboots.
(Though a pretty big case can be made that the reason they don't produce new stuff is because then they lose the mass appeal
in the market, and it can be counter-argued that this in particular is ruining their ability to tell a story.)
“Now, they probably read the equivalent of hundreds of pages every day online and in the course of their duties ...”
I’m one of those tech people that doesn’t read books outside of my realm (we can certainly debate the intelligent part :-) ).
I used to love reading when I was a kid. Once I hit high school, I started to hate it. I never understood why I couldn’t read something by Issac Asimov for credit, but was forced to read books by John Steinbeck which I found ridiculously lame (got thrown out of class for calling “The Grapes of Wrath” “Welfare Wagons West” :-) ... also was forced to read “Of Mice and Men” which was a total bore).
When I was forced to take a few literature-centric humanities classes in college, I wanted to jump off a building. I did well, but the books were, again, horrible and the class discussions made my ears bleed.
I don’t think I’ve read a single work of fiction since college ... part of the reason is that I get terribly burnt out reading about stuff that I apply and earn a living :-).
I am a bit ashamed that I haven’t even looked at classical literature in over 20 years seeing that I’m typically pegged as the “intellectual” type (though that’s devolved into cynicism anymore). I might have to give it a shot and see if a few years of life experience will lead to an appreciation for works I’ve completely ignored.