[A] recent study of 10,000 community college students in California
found that, in the 18-25-year age group, just 17% of the men could
acquire information efficiently through reading text.... The figure
for women in the same age group is a bit higher: just under 35% can
learn well from textually presented information. These figures
contrast with those for students aged 35 or over: 27% of males and
over 42% of females find it natural to learn from reading....
[I]f the difference between the figures for the two generations indicates
the start of a steady decline in the ability to read text of
paragraph length, then a great deal of our scientific and cultural
heritage is likely to become highly marginalized.