Moving towards illiteracy?

While the Gadfly may have issues with polls, this one caught my eye recently. 1 in 4 Americans apparently never read a single book last year, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.
The Gadfly is not surprised by this. In fact, I would probably peg that number as even higher than 1 in 4.
America is not a reading nation. We are a nation of TV, movies, and sports, but not of reading.
I would add that as much as I would like it to count, perusing blogs does not count as reading.
The Gadfly at times has felt like a sole evangelist standing on my soapbox, touting the critical need for reading. In fact, if I had to name my greatest teacher, it would be the library. Through reading, and knowing how to access information, one can quickly become knowledgeable and even have a foundation for making new discoveries and insights. But it takes reading, and reading isn't easy. Good reading requires a quiet place with minimal distractions, it requires actively taking notes and questioning what one reads, and it requires time. It is so much easier to plop in front of a couch to watch TV or surf on YouTube than to read these days. The level of distractions and easy entertainment options today has shunted our attention away from critical reading.
The Gadfly can only hope that the spark of reading catches on at some point in this country, so that we can discover our greatest teacher in the written word.