Curiosities

Digital Nation

By posted at 12:00 pm on November 13, 2012 3

Point: “Repeated surveys show that children spend less time reading than did previous generations. They instead devote many hours of their waking lives to electronic screens of one kind or another.” Counterpoint: “Generation Y, those born between 1979 and 1989, spent the most money on books in 2011, taking over long-held book-buying leadership from baby boomers…with 43 percent of GenY’s purchases going to online channels, they are adding momentum to the industry shift to digital.” Conclusion?

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3 Responses to “Digital Nation”

  1. ZK
    at 12:42 pm on November 13, 2012

    Every generation has its own disease.

    I teach high school. Kids read more than I read when I was in high school because education gurus recommend self-selected reading to school districts. Let us all hope this continues.

  2. ***Dave
    at 3:48 pm on November 13, 2012

    Not sure the Point/Counterpoint disagree with each other, since the date range given would be 22-32 years old, not quite children.

    On the other hand, I like ZK’s comment. Certainly my middle school-aged daughter reads a whole heck of a lot, and that’s a really good reason why.

  3. Kristopher Monroe
    at 11:00 am on November 14, 2012

    My best friend’s eight year old spends an inordinate amount of time on the computer playing games, watching videos and whatnot, and he also has one of the largest vocabularies I’ve heard from someone his age. His reading comprehension is through the roof and his spelling accuracy always surprises me. He also wanted to keep the last book he got from his school library because he loved it so much and wanted to read it again. This isn’t an either/or situation. Digital technology isn’t going to destroy the written word in any way at all.

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