Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults, or some 175 million people, engage with the arts through electronic media, according to a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts. Younger adults tended to use electronic media to access arts-related content at higher rates than older adults, as did those with higher levels of education. The report, which relies on data from the
2017 Survey of Public Participation of the Arts, elucidates how Americans engage with the arts and their reasons for doing so.
Over half of American adults, or 54 percent, reported attending at least one cultural event per year, with the most popular types of events being live music performances, fairs and festivals, and live plays or musicals. Education level retained a particularly strong correlation to participation in arts events. The report found that the the rate at which adults with a graduate degree attended an art event was between 5 and 55 percentage points higher than the rate for adults with lower levels of education.
The report’s authors noted the shift towards Americans not only appreciating the artistic works of others, but wanting to engage with art on their own terms. They wrote: