Tablet alarm.Turn on laptop, turn on kettle. Check mobile 'phone for messages and Facebook updates. Laptop's warmed up by now so time to check Facebook and twitter on a bigger screen. Check analytic data, newspapers. Make tea.
So begins my day, Monday to Sunday. If I am at school I will use the computer to take the register and set up Power Points for lessons. Often there's a clip from YouTube; always a lesson plan. If I am not teaching then I am writing, researching or tending my website. As with so many people now, the screen, in all of its formats, is essential to my life. For children it is even more so.
Many people are concerned that children spend too much time on their mobiles texting and playing games and interacting on social media. Now that e-books are fully fledged there is no need for anyone, let alone children, to read old-fashioned paper books. The question is whether technology has a detrimental effect on reading skills. This has led to many studies and the most recent from the National Literary Trust was published today. It claims that reading from computers has overtaken reading from books.
The results show that out of the almost 35,000 children surveyed (aged from eight to sixteen) less than a third said that they preferred to read in print, as more than half prefer to read from electronic devices. This includes e-readers where the figure of children using them has doubled in the last two years. Surely if they are reading they are reading? Where is the harm?
According to the Trust's research, those children who read daily only on-screen are nearly twice less likely to be above average readers than those who read daily in print or in print and on-screen. Those who read only on-screen are also less likely to enjoy reading very much and less likely to have a favourite book.
The National Literary Trust is calling for a balance between technology and traditional books. Rightly so, as balance in all things is the correct way. It is important that people see that it is not 'either or'. In my own experience, children hear about books via their social networking and read them following recommendations from their peers. The popularity of the Hunger Games and the books of John Green have benefited from the screen.
Green has fully embraced the social media that these electronic devices bring. Not only does he have the obligatory website but he connects with his audience of young adults (what we used to call teenagers) by means on vlogging. As I mentioned previously, vlogging is video blogging uploaded onto YouTube. See an example on my Guest Blogspot. Green has achieved great success. He won the 2006 Printz Award for his debut novel and reached number one on a New York Times Best Sellers List. Teenagers are buying his books in paper format as well as seeing his work on screen, each complementing the other.
It could be that some children do not like to read, whether they have a computer or not. Those brought up in book-free homes have always tended not be readers themselves. The National Literary Trust does not appear to have taken this into account. However, I like to think that the social networks will encourage children to try books through vlogs by people such as John Green, as well as good old-fashioned peer pressure.
I love technology, it is part of me, but I also love books. I like the feel of them, the decorative and homely appeal of them in my living room. I cannot be the only one who thinks like that: I know I'm not. This is the 'healthy balance' that the Literary Trust is calling for.
Vlogging though...I'll need to examine my dressing up box for that.
See my website http://www.ajsefton.com
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