Montage comes to learn that "firemen are rarely necessary" because "the public itself stopped reading of its own accord. " Bradbury wrote his novel in 1953
I think this is asking for your opinion rather than mine. I fear this is actually quite true. There are so many alternatives to reading vying for our stimulus addicted brains. The contemplative act of reading a good book is becoming an endangered activity.
As you said, Bradbury wrote his novel in 1953. We could recognize that the book was inspired in the events that had happened just before and during the World War II (mostly in fascist countries, where the prohibition and cremation of "forbidden" books was a real thing). As an example we have Franco, Spanish dictator, who ordered to arrest the people who owned these books (books that went obviously against his philosophy) and to burn them in order to get rid of these ideals. This caused panic among the people who owned them, and they tried to get rid of them as soon as possible. Still, this doesn't mean that they had stopped reading, but that some of their readings were restricted.
As for today, I think in a sense it's true that people read less, but not because someone is literally pointing a gun at you or because you know you could get in trouble if you did read certain books. We, as lucky as we are, can read whatever we want, without no restriction.
So in conclusion I would say that, we, in the present, read less because of lack of time or lack of interest, or because we have access to information instantly through the internet, and that contrasts with the reason why people stopped reading in Fahrenheit 451, which was because they were being threatened.
I read the book and I also have background in fascist policies.
