In Study, Children Cite Appeal of Digital Reading
By JULIE BOSMAN
Many children want to read books on digital devices and would read for fun more frequently if they could obtain e-books. But even if they had that access, two-thirds of them would not want to give up their traditional print books.
These are a few of the findings in a study being released on Wednesday by Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter books and the “Hunger Games” trilogy.
The report set out to explore the attitudes and behaviors of parents and children toward reading books for fun in a digital age. Scholastic surveyed more than 2,000 children ages 6 to 17, and their parents, in the spring.
Parents and educators have long worried that digital diversions like video games and cellphones cut into time that children spend reading. However, they see the potential for using technology to their advantage, introducing books to digitally savvy children through e-readers, computers and mobile devices.
About 25 percent of the children surveyed said they had already read a book on a digital device, including computers and e-readers. Fifty-seven percent between ages 9 and 17 said they were interested in doing so.
Only 6 percent of parents surveyed owned an e-reader, but 16 percent said they planned to buy one in the next year. Eighty-three percent of those parents said they would allow or encourage their children to use the e-readers.
Francie Alexander, the chief academic officer at Scholastic, called the report “a call to action.”
“I didn’t realize how quickly kids had embraced this technology,” Ms. Alexander said, referring to computers and e-readers or other portable devices that can download books. “Clearly they see them as tools for reading — not just gaming, not just texting. They see them as an opportunity to read.”
Milton Chen, a senior fellow at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, said the report made the case that children want to read on new digital platforms.
“The very same device that is used for socializing and texting and staying in touch with their friends can also be turned for another purpose,” Mr. Chen said. “That’s the hope.”
But many parents surveyed also expressed deep concerns about the distractions of video games, cellphones and television in their children’s lives. They also wondered if the modern multi-tasking adolescent had the patience to become engrossed in a long novel.
“My daughter can’t stop texting long enough to concentrate on a book,” said one parent surveyed, the mother of a 15-year-old in Texas.
Another survey participant, the mother of a 7-year-old Michigan boy, said, “I am afraid my son’s attention span will only include fast-moving ideas, and book reading will become boring to him.”
More than half the parents surveyed said they were concerned that as their children spent more time using digital devices, they would be less interested in recreational reading. The study did not try to measure whether the digital devices actually did detract from time spent reading.
The study also examined the effect of parents and teachers on children’s reading habits. Children ages 9 to 11 are more likely to be frequent readers if their parents provide interesting books to read at home and set limits on time spent using technology like video games, the report said.
The report also suggested that many children displayed an alarmingly high level of trust in information available on the Internet: 39 percent of children ages 9 to 17 said the information they found online was “always correct.”
The second-to-last paragraph particularly applies to me:
ReplyDelete"Children ages 9 to 11 are more likely to be frequent readers if their parents provide interesting books to read at home and set limits on time spent using technology like video games, the report said."
I was not allowed to play video games during school weeks, so I would often turn to my dad's bookshelf for entertainment--a shelf that contained an Anthology of Spanish Poetry, Crime and Punishment, The Bible, the works of Gabriel García Márquez, and other really cool books.
Like Dr. McCay said today in class, reading is reading. At the end of the day, whether you're using an e-reader or a paperback novel doesn't necessarily matter--though I still stand by my belief that holding a book in my hands is a magical feeling.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, my parents actually threatened taking away my books from me if I didn't get my work done. Much like you, Rolando, I would pick up the most random of things, including my father's sci-fi books and my mom's books on travel. I think that kids nowadays, however, have more options, and I think that includes reading online and technology such as e-readers and cell phones. In a way, reading will be more universal since the younger generation will be able to at one moment be playing a game and the next reading a book on the same device.
I know this definitely holds true in my family-- the younger you are, the less you've read. I'm starting to catch up to my brother again, but there were a few years during which I preferred to socialize with friends on the internet than read Tolstoy (please don't judge me by those dark years in my intellectual life). My little sister does uphold the family honor by tearing up bookshelves, but she only reads really fast-paced stuff like Terry Pratchett and children's literature, and I think it's because she just doesn't have time to read big books, or the inclination to read slow-paced books. She hated The Swiss Family Robinson, for instance, because she said nothing happened in it... which is true... but no one else in my family ever complained. She's six years younger than me and born and raised on the internet, and I suspect that's why.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what this will mean for reading and punishment in the future. I got punished by having my books taken away when I was young, but later I got punished from books and the Internet when my grades were bad... and they usually were. So if more kids are reading on e-readers like the iPad, then what happens when the whole mobile device gets taken away because parents want to punish them from the other apps and distractions? Parents may not mean to be punishing their kids from reading, but as most kids are not as into reading as we were, they probably will not be motivated to pick up a paperback when they're bored. The distractions of the digital technology might end up keeping kids from reading, but maybe not...
ReplyDeleteOn a practical note: let's make sure to link to these articles, rather than just pasting them into the blog -- so that we avoid the appearance of ripping off content.
ReplyDelete