John Orosz has to read a total of 18 books for his three history classes this semester, so he doesn’t have much time left over to read for pleasure, he said.

Many of his peers aren’t reading on their own time either, recent studies have shown.

“It’s such a visual culture,” Orosz said. Instead of reading, his fellow students are watching movies and going on the Internet, he said.

Some NIU English professors have noticed this trend in recent years and aren’t happy.

“It leads to a diminishment of a critical intelligence,” said English professor John V. Knapp, who has seen enrollment drop in some of his literature classes lately. “They tend to repeat what formulas they get out of popular culture. In the public schools, there’s a lot of ‘text-message language.’ There is a sense of being open to political manipulation. What I find is students will start repeating what they hear from the talking heads.”

Nearly 40 percent of college freshmen and one in three college seniors don’t read for pleasure at all, according to the Higher Education Research Institute. In 1982, 82 percent of college graduates read literature. In 2002, only 67 percent did, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found.

“They’re not being encouraged to start early,” said English professor Larry Johannessen. “Those habits start at home.”

Knapp acknowledged this as well.

“Many parents have two jobs. There’s not as much time during early childhood to read to kids,” Knapp said. “There’s got to be a leadership of adults — especially at home.”

The lack of reading among students can hurt their production in college — and beyond. The more students read, the higher they scored on reading and writing tests, the NEA study found. And employers said college graduates’ biggest deficiency nowadays is their lack of “written communication” skills.

“We know there’s a high correlation between reading and high academic success,” Johannessen said. “As a less literate people, our democracy is in jeopardy.”

Knapp said NIU should require a reading list for incoming freshmen and more political thought and history courses for all of its students to rectify this problem.

Johannessen said book clubs are an option, but that whether we like it our not, “our notion of text is going to change. We’re going to see more and more text that’s mixed media.”

Orosz said even if he didn’t have to read so many books for class, he probably still wouldn’t read for pleasure.

“I’d rather watch a movie,” he said.