NPR Reports Teens Reading Less

It’s a longstanding cliché we parents repeat that our kids can have more fun with a box than with the toy that comes in the box. It’s still true, and we still don’t trust our own wisdom in this regard because presenting a kid with an empty box for his birthday or some other occasion is a risky bet that I personally have yet to make with any of my own kids. I’m also as guilty as many parents out there who’ve gifted children with tablet “readers” that are admittedly used most of the time for every feature they offer except reading. We do limit our kids’ time with devices and computers, and when they have to read or choose to read, they still pick up physical books most of the time. This is partly because we just happen to have a lot of books in the house, but there remains something to be said for narrowing the range of options in one’s periphery or at one’s fingertips in order to derive the most enriching experiences. Sometimes, you just gotta sit and study the empty box for a moment before you discover its many possibilities.

This story from NPR reports that reading among teens has sharply declined over the last decade, according to a study by Common Sense Media. Jennifer Ludden’s report emphasizes the need for parental involvement in helping kids learn to moderate their use of devices that offer so many attractive diversions and eat up time that might be spent exclusively reading. The story caught my attention of course because it is yet another example of why more access to something like literature does not automatically result in an increased benefit to society. Technology companies that want to scan every book ever written “for the greater good,” and copyright critics who cry foul over the volumes of works not yet in the public domain are ignoring the fact that society will not necessarily behave according to the idealism they promote. Personally, I don’t think it’s counterintuitive that more books more cheaply available through more portals can fail to produce more literacy. There are too many factors at play that determine a teenager’s or young adult’s choice to read for pleasure, and the many diversions offered by eReaders and other devices is just one of these factors. I’d certainly stop short of outright blaming digital technology for driving down reading; but at the same time, anyone who says more has to be made available for the “good of the people” is either very naive or more likely has a multi-million-dollar axe he’s looking to grind.

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Faza (TCM) says:

May 13, 2014 at 3:36 pm

Personally, I find the experience of on-screen reading rather bad and would do so only if given no other choice. I cannot say to what extent it is a matter of preference and I can certainly imagine that someone used primarily to a reading device might find printed books “wrong”.

Medium aside, I think the U.S. should count itself lucky that the decline in reading has “only just” kicked in. Here in Poland, it’s been at a criminally low level for decades. Before the internet, people at least used to read newspapers. These days, it seems nobody’s reading anything.

Whilst I cannot speak from the experience of raising my own kids (and likely will never be able to), intuition tells me that unless the reading instinct is instilled at a young age – preferrably by parents reading to their children (in order to capitalise on the child’s natural desire to spend time with their parents) – it is unlikely to organically develop later. School can help or hinder (and my guess is that the choice of literature taught in Polish schools is the primary culprit with regards to why people here don’t read books), but it seems to me that the reading impulse should primarily come from the individual.

If we start looking for network effects, we will probably notice that there’s little peer pressure to keep up with others’ reading habits, as opposed to staying on top of what’s on TV or trending in social media. Such peer pressure could be developed if more children and teens were in the habit of reading and more attention was devoted to promoting books among this group.

On the other hand, simply making everything available for free (and as an advertising vehicle for Google et al.) is unlikely to improve the situation in the slightest.

- David Newhoff says:
  
  May 22, 2014 at 9:38 am
  
  On a related note, I was just discussing with someone that one of the things I miss, especially when reading a non-fiction work on a tablet, is the sensory data in my hands telling me roughly were in the narrative I am. If I want to refer back to a physical book I read years ago, I can usual find a passage fairly quickly because I retain the sense memory of where approximately the passage occurred. In digital reading, this sensory information is lost, which I would argue is something more than nostalgia or taste. Just an observation.