Yeah, it’s mostly based on talking to a lot of readers, writers, editors, and literature teachers, and seeing how the market’s going and what players in it are doing to try to stay relevant. I’ve not conducted some kind of study on this and it’s certainly possible I’m bubble-bound in some of it (though I think my bubble leans rather the opposite way, if anything…?) but do think it’s more-or-less accurate. I dunno, I could be wrong about a lot of it. I don’t get the impression that a great majority of reading that occurs is some elevated activity any more than I get the impression most TV-viewing is—I also don’t think that state of affairs is bad, to be clear, or that it’s bad to enjoy the literary equivalent of a Hallmark movie—but it’s possible I’m wrong and there really is good cause to call out reading as a notably improving activity, without qualification.

It’s touched by subjectivity, to be sure, but I’ve tried to dial in my level of sweeping-statement so they’re only as sweeping as I think probably correct (those “some”s and “many”s and “most”s) but sure, in the end it’s what I see from where I sit, not a behavioral study.

No worries about the tone, I screwed this whole thread up by having a tone in my initial post that many read (not without reason!) as implying some stuff I didn’t write, and did not intend to imply, but did. Mea culpa.