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The mobile trend is growing. But are we prepared for the changes that using smartphones and tablets entails? On the Digital Strategy Blog , this was a question that deserved our attention. At the time of writing this post, we greece email list evaluated several cases of accidents caused by the use of mobile devices while performing other tasks.
Now, in this new article on an increasingly pressing topic, we return to this theme and are prepared to take a different approach.
This time, we analyze the problems caused by mobile phones from another perspective: what kind of impact can the use of tablets and smartphones have, in the long term, on children's reading habits?
This is exactly what we are trying to understand, basing our post on a series of testimonies given by several researchers.
Mobile: digital books for children?
This is a problem that has been studied by researchers around the world. Despite the many advantages that we can recognize in mobile devices and this growing trend, the truth is that technology can be seen as a problem.
According to data released by OfCom – the UK ’s telecommunications regulator – the number of children aged between 5 and 15 who have access to a tablet increased from 7% to 71% between 2010 and 2014. This staggering number proves in itself that paradigms have changed thanks to mobile .
“The popularity of tablets among children is a controversial topic. Are these devices distracting children from more traditional activities that some consider to promote better well-being, such as reading?” Stuart Dredge asked this question in a study published in The Guardian .
It seems that the answer to this question may be yes, mobile devices may indeed be affecting reading among young people. We only need to take a look at a report by the American publisher Scholastic to see the reduction in reading habits among children between the ages of 6 and 17.
From 2010 to 2014, the number of children reading for pleasure between 5 and 7 days a week fell from 37% to 31% .
One of the obvious solutions to bridge the gap between mobile and reading habits is to combine the two into one. Why not read a book on your tablet?
However, this may not be as easy as it sounds. Irene Picton of the National Literacy Trust believes that “we need research” and “more comprehensive research” before we can promote such initiatives.
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David Kleeman , vice president of Dubit , a company that analyzes global trends and points out that “almost everything you read today about e-reading is preliminary or on a reduced scale”, agrees with this need .
But there may be hope in the future if the investigations prove positive.
After all, as Irene Picton says , paper books themselves were an advanced technology when they first appeared. The philosopher Socrates , for example, regarded writing as something strange and completely unnecessary, since he believed that reading and writing information was not as efficient as hearing it.
As Picton adds , digital platforms can provide an opportunity to “keep reading relevant” and says that not having an “open mind” can lead us to “ignore that opportunity”.
However, you need to know how to transfer text from paper to digital .
“With a screen competing for a child’s attention and offering multiple [entertainment] options – videos, apps, games, books, and social networks – it’s very easy to be seduced by the possibilities: introducing unnecessary things that don’t support or enhance the story, but rather distract,” warns David Kleeman .
One of Stuart Dredge 's interviewees , who did not wish to be identified, raises the question: “Maybe the problem is not with kids and screens, but with parents and screens (…) Children look to us as role models, so how can we expect them to love reading if we can't step away from Facebook or WhatsApp for 10 minutes to read with them?”
So, asks Gareth Williams , “can these social aspects of interactivity happen with devices in the same way they do with books? It really comes down to people.”