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| Hearsay: |
The Huffington Post asks what will happen when the current generation of “hybrid readers”, ie, those who were raised on books but are digiliterate (ie, us), dies out.
But what happens when we die out? Will the young’uns feel as we do about books? I’d like to think so, but I guess in twenty years or so, what I think won’t make a shred of difference, not to the young’uns, or the text they are reading.
I was thinking about this recently in relation to my boys. They’ve never known a world without computers and video games and TV. But they’re also buried in books. Will there be enough kids like them to keep books alive? Will this early education in books (and holding off on the tv and internet) pay off for them as adults or hobble them? Certainly in our little urban literary/academic biosphere of a social circle it will be an advantage, but what about the larger world? My son (almost six) has started drawing detailed replicas of Nintendo machines and controllers, and he walks around the house “playing” them and telling me about the game levels he’s created. I can’t hold back the flood waters much longer. I told him that when I was a kid we loved books because “stories” are better than “levels” and that if he could come up with some video games based on real narratives, I’d think about helping him design some levels for it, and all he said was, “So your parents wouldn’t let you buy a DS either?” (Also, when recently investigating how religious our elementary school’s curriculum is, I asked my eldest what he knew about “Jesus”, he said, “Jeezes? What are they?” I had a pang of Proddy guilt like you never felt, let me tell you.) Anyway, it doesn’t seem like it’s a winning battle. My kid will be literate and well-read if it kills us both. But will his peers? Will their kids?
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December 15th, 2008 at 10:33 am
What is hard for us to relate to most is that this is a generation whose social life is entirely digital; they don’t even like to talk to each other on the telephone if they can text. We tend to interpret nintendo and the like as displacing reading, but they don’t occupy the same turf since reading has always been a private activity and nintendo is primarily social.
Certainly, the social ramifications of not allowing video games in the house have been very disappointing — my son’s friends didn’t want to come over! Or sometimes, when they did, they came with an x-box in a knapsack! Once he started earning his own money he bought is own equipment and that was that. All his friends (final year of high school) are bright, funny, personable, well-read, and they are all equally passionate about video games. SO just to reassure you George, it may be that our concern is misplaced
AS LONG AS we strictly limit the gaming time! NO kids should be left alone hour after hour with a computer or a game the way he can be safely tucked away with a good book. But if he’s playing with friends, I think it’s OK.
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Don’t be too hard on the boy. I was — and am, still — hooked on books from a young age *and* I watched plenty of television. We also played many, many games.
Are there enough books laying around? And read to him. Reading should be fun; it shouldn’t be a chore. And it should never be the only option. The internet and computers have many advantages.