PC-induced death of kids' reading is a lot of hogwash

NET RESULTS:FOR CHILDREN all over Ireland, that delicious stretch of indolence known as the summer holidays has begun. Going by some media reports, one would be led to believe this means a summer of slumping in a chair before the PC or console, playing violent computer games and tuning out the real world.

The corollary, of course – and the one we also hear regularly touted – is that children do not read much any more, finding the virtual world of internet surfing and computer games far more enticing.

One word: hogwash.

I toss this load of rubbish into the same bin I reserve for the excuses offered by adults for the ridiculous tendency to limit severely what kids can do, and for driving them everywhere, cocooning them away out of fear that they are constantly in danger (when crime statistics show the world is actually no more dangerous for kids than it was in the 1970s).

Even on the face of it, the argument that children spend too much useless time on computers and don’t read flies in the face of those other stories in the media that breathlessly report on the Harry Potter phenomenon. Children queuing up to buy books! To meet an author! How many kids are left in the western world who have not devoured the Potter series?

All signs are that the Narnia books remain as addictive as ever for kids, never mind Lemony Snicket, the His Dark Materials novels, and all the other print worlds that kids vanish happily into.

The real live kids I know love books, and also love their computers, but don’t spend their lives glued to games consoles or the internet (or for that matter, watching non-stop TV) – not least because their use is metered by responsible parents, as it should be. And a variety of media – print and electronic – enhances children’s lives.

Surveys back this up. Take the recent 2008 Kids and Family Reading report, compiled by TSC, part of consumer trends research company Yankelovich, and released by kids’ publishers Scholastic, which looked at children’s consumption of both books and technology.

The survey interviewed more than 1,000 people in the US (that hotbed of supposed technology-addicted non-readers), about equally split between children under 17 and parents.

It found that nearly a quarter of kids were what the survey termed “high-frequency” pleasure readers, meaning they read daily. An additional 53 per cent were “moderate frequency” readers, reading for pleasure between one and six times weekly (which I’d say is considerably more than many of those adults who grew up in the non-computer era and who now lament the purported lack of reading among kids).

Regarding technology use, the survey reveals that more children over eight spend time online than read daily for pleasure. But far from being a bad thing, the survey actually showed that kids that are online a lot also tend to read more, not less.

“High-frequency internet users are more likely to read books for fun every day,” Heather Carter, director of corporate research at Scholastic, said in a statement released with the survey.

“That suggests that parents and teachers can tap into kids’ interest in going online to spark a greater interest in reading books.”

The survey showed that two-thirds of children up to age 17 used the internet to directly expand their experience of reading books – visiting author websites or fan sites for example, or finding other titles by a favourite author (about a third use the net for the latter).

Children engage in other online activities that directly enhance their pleasure in their favourite books, too – and show how comfortable kids are with using new media. Some 18 per cent have gone looking for blogs about a loved book, 16 per cent have visited discussion boards about a book, and the same number have listened to podcasts about a book they’ve read.

Some 75 per cent of the children surveyed agreed with the statement: “No matter what I can do online, I’ll always want to read books printed on paper.”

All of that indicates a pretty healthy love of reading among kids, a pleasure directly enlivened and encouraged by their use of the internet.

The bottom line is that kids are inspired by their parents’ own interests, and their activities are hugely shaped by how parents structure their home environment.

Mindful parents manage their kids’ access to computers, gaming consoles and television. Reading parents inspire and create reading children. Simple as that.

klillington@irish-times.ie

Blog: www.techno-culture.com