This week The Huffington Post published an interesting article regarding a recent study that found books are getting longer.  As the study quickly pointed out, this leads to an interesting multi-faceted discussion.  The trend lately, at least according to a variety of credited sources, and society as a whole, seems to be that our attention spans are becoming shorter thanks to the Internet.  The survey, conducted by FlipSnack and published by The Guardian, states that “according to a sampling of over 2,500 bestselling…titles from 1999-2014, about 80 extra pages have been [added] on to the average length of a book.” 

At surface level, this seems like great and interesting news!  But the article brings a valid perspective to the results.  The time frame is an interesting choice since the Internet did exist before 1999, and this survey does not take into account pre-Internet and pre-television books.  The books surveyed also could be biased, since the 2,500 books came from bestseller lists, The New York Times’ notable books, and Google’s survey of most-discussed books.  By focusing on this type of books, a large variety of genres are practically ignored.  However, as a whole, this is great news.  While many bemoan the death of books, it seems books are alive and very well!