Have men really stopped reading? The devil's in the data — video
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
14 minutes ago
- Times
Things aren't quite as rosé as surveys make out
A new survey by a hospitality group has found that a third of British men would prefer a glass of rosé to a pint and I've never heard such a load of old cobblers in my life. I've never known a man even order a glass of rosé, let alone prefer it to a pint. My men friends know their way around a wine list, and they're well aware that rosé these days can be great, not the cheap sugary swill of 30 years ago. Given the choice, though, they'll still only drink red or white and, if they're in a pub, it will always, always be a pint. British men who prefer rosé? Really? I've been fed some lines by men in my time, but they obviously save their best for people conducting surveys. Broadly speaking, I am an idiot with few useful skills, none of them transferable. Most of the time that's fine but oh, this week, how I wished I could sew. Trying to get curtains altered turned out to be a feat of endurance spanning three weeks, four seamstresses and five counties. I've got the best-travelled curtains in Christendom and all because I can't sew. They half-heartedly tried to teach it at school, but do they bother with it at all any more? They're probably busy teaching citizenship, or self-care, or however they fill the time between maths and English. It's not that I need to make a ballgown. I don't yearn to go on The Great British Sewing Bee. I'd just like some basic sewing skills and I suspect most people my age don't have any. I can't hem a skirt, or darn a moth hole, let alone shorten curtains. I can swim and I can touch-type but it turns out that, just occasionally, more skills might be useful. Who knew? News from the high street is usually grim, but Mountain Warehouse is thriving. It has just posted record revenue and has plans to open dozens more stores across the country and so, being incurably curious, I went to investigate. The windows promised a 15 per cent discount for anyone with a festival ticket, and you don't get that at Manolo Blahnik. As for inside, what joyful mysteries are these? A 'Summit Mummy', half price in the sale, regular length, three seasons? Literally no clue. But it was the bottles of something called Tent Proofer that blew my little mind. I do not often think about tents. I learnt that they should be avoided at all costs after a week at Girl Guide camp, and nothing in the years since has persuaded me otherwise. But if I were pushed, I would assume they arrived weatherproof, because that is the point of a tent, is it not? A tent that isn't weatherproof isn't fit for purpose. It's like a colander with no holes. Yet apparently tents need proofing, just like expensive suede shoes, and I find this oddly reassuring. They sell quick-dry trousers, too, which could be just the thing if you spill your rosé. Maybe I'm not so very different from a Mountain Warehouse customer after all. Scraping into the Royal Academy with my nieces, the day before the Summer Exhibition closed, we looked forward to what the critics said was a vintage year for art. There wasn't a single thing we'd have taken home, let alone paid for. If you want to wake up to paintings of burnt-out buildings or photos of derelict, rubbish-strewn landscapes it was indeed a vintage year. If your taste runs to 101 menacing, disembowelled white rats arranged in a circle on the floor, yours for £85,000, you must be sorry you missed it. The best thing we bought was the rosé we drank as we wandered round. And no, we would not have preferred a pint. As a novice wooden floor owner, I have two questions: how do you clean it and what do you wear to walk on it? Hot water and detergent will wash it, but also destroy it. Vacuuming, as the installer suggests, only dusts it. Shoes would be ruinous, but socks are lethal. So?
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Deeply concerning': reading for fun in the US has fallen by 40%, new study says
The amount of Americans who read for pleasure has fallen by 40%, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Florida and University College London have found that between 2003 and 2023, daily reading for reasons other than work and study fell by about 3% each year. The number saw a peak in 2004, with 28% of people qualifying, before falling to 16% in 2023. The data was taken from more than 236,000 Americans who participated in the American Time Use Survey and the study was published in the journal iScience. The definition of reading in the survey wasn't limited to books; it also included magazines and newspapers in print, electronic or audio form. Jill Sonke, study co-author, called it 'a sustained, steady decline' and one that is 'deeply concerning'. 'Reading has historically been a low-barrier, high-impact way to engage creatively and improve quality of life,' Sonke said. 'When we lose one of the simplest tools in our public health toolkit, it's a serious loss.' While all groups saw a decline, there were bigger drops among certain groups such as Black Americans, people with lower incomes or education levels, and those in rural areas. More women than men also continue to read for fun. Daisy Fancourt, study co-author, said: 'Potentially the people who could benefit the most for their health – so people from disadvantaged groups – are actually benefiting the least.' The study also showed that those who read for pleasure have tended to spend even more time reading than before and that the number of those who read with their children hasn't changed. 'Our digital culture is certainly part of the story,' Sonke said of explanations to the figures. 'But there are also structural issues – limited access to reading materials, economic insecurity and a national decline in leisure time. If you're working multiple jobs or dealing with transportation barriers in a rural area, a trip to the library may just not be feasible.' Last year in the US, sales of physical books rose slightly after two years of declines. Adult fiction was the main driver, with Kristin Hannah's The Women leading the pack. The literacy level in the US is estimated to be about 79%, which ranks as 36th globally.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Can the government keep kids safe in childcare?
You can subscribe for free to Guardian Australia's daily news podcast Full Story on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
