books

There is disagreement over a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) study that makes a case that people are reading less and kids are in trouble as a result.

The NEA study is ignoring online reading, according to Steven Johnson in his article Dawn of the Digital Natives. He contends, “if you actually read the report, what you find are some startling omissions – omissions that ultimately lead to a heavily distorted view of the Google generation and its prospects.” He points out that “The NEA makes a convincing case that both kids and adults are reading fewer books. “Non-required” reading — ie, picking up a book for the fun of it — is down 7% since 1992 for all adults, and 12% for 18-24 year olds.”

But the NEA report also shows that younger children are making progress in their reading abilities. Teenager’s reading scores have only dropped by about 1% in 15 years. Is that Alarming? It doesn’t seem to be.

Kids as well as adults increasingly read more online, and in Johnson’s estimation, they are “exercising the same cognitive muscles” whether the words are represented in ink or pixels.

The NEA hit back, saying that Steven Johnson misrepresented the report. Sunil Iyengar is the director of the Office of Research & Analysis at the NEA, and he says that they did not exclude online reading from their analysis. He says their data comes from studies “…asking people how frequently they read anything whatsoever for pleasure — a category so broad as to include text of any length in any format through any medium, from books to cereal boxes to, yes, computer screens.”

Then Iyengar parades additional statistics which seem to support the NEA’s claims.

But as you read both of these articles, the notion that Johnson and Iyengar are both cherry picking statistics to support their arguments emerges.

Iyengar ends with some honesty that suggests we need to put this debate on hold for a while because we really don’t have all the answers: “Now is the time for educators and intellectuals to produce sound empirical studies of the risks and benefits of electronic media.”

Perhaps it’s not the medium as much as the quality of the content that makes the true difference in kid’s becoming smart.

Until a clear answer emerges, a policy of moderation in using online media is probably the safest path, and encouraging reading is never a bad thing.

Hat tip to Kevin Arthur for linking to the articles mentioned above. Here are additional book related links from his great blog, Question Technology:

• Books and Emotional Attachments
• Does Kids’ Reading Need to be More Interactive?
• eBooks Better than Traditional Books?

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