|
|
 |
|
The
views expressed
on this page are soley those of the author and do not
necessarily
represent the views of County News Online
|
|
Washington Post
Yes, teens are
texting and using social media instead of reading books, researchers say
By Hannah Natanson
August 20
A new study has alarming findings, but is probably not surprising to
anyone who knows a teenager: High-schoolers today are texting,
scrolling and using social media instead of reading books and magazines.
In their free time, American adolescents are cradling their devices
hours each day rather than losing themselves in print or long-form
media, according to research published Monday by the American
Psychological Association.
In fact, 1 in 3 U.S. high school seniors did not read a book for
pleasure in 2016. In the same time period, 82 percent of 12th-graders
visited sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram every day.
Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University
and one of the authors of the study, said the lack of leisure reading
is troubling. For her, the most important discovery hidden in the data
is this statistic: In the 1970s, about 60 percent of high school
seniors reported reading a book, magazine or newspaper every single
day. Four decades later, in 2016, 16 percent of high school seniors
reported doing so.
“This decline in reading print media — particularly the decline in
reading books, it’s concerning,” said Twenge, author of the book “iGen:
Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More
Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood — and
What That Means for the Rest of Us.”
The reason for the concern is that the skill set and attention it takes
to digest concepts in long-form writing are quite different from
glancing at a text message or status update, she said.
“Reading long-form texts like books and magazine articles is really
important for understanding complex ideas and for developing critical
thinking skills,” Twenge said. “It’s also excellent practice for
students who are going on to college.”
The study, conducted by Twenge and two colleagues at San Diego State,
Gabrielle Martin and Brian Spitzberg, is based on data culled through a
survey project called Monitoring the Future that has been ongoing since
1975. Run by researchers at the University of Michigan and funded by
the National Institutes of Health, Monitoring the Future surveys high
school students across the nation quizzing them on their career plans
and drug use, among other things.
Twenge, Martin and Spitzberg analyzed self-reported reading habits of
eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders between 1976 and 2016, representing a
total of more than 1 million teenagers. The researchers compared
high-schoolers’ consumption of “legacy media” — books, newspapers and
magazines — to their consumption of “digital media,” which includes the
Internet, cellphone texts, video games and social media sites.
The decline in reading rates of legacy media began in the early 1980s
and accelerated swiftly after the mid-2000s, when smartphones and
high-speed Internet access became widely available. At the same time,
high-schoolers’ screen time, including television, began to rise —
nearly tripling between the late 1970s and the mid-2010s, according to
the study.
In 2016, 12th-graders reported devoting about six hours of their free
time every day to digital media. Tenth-graders reported devoting five
hours, and eighth-graders reporting devoting four hours.
Twenge said she and her co-authors think that the trends are
intertwined. The data shows that, given an hour to themselves, teens
would rather pick up their devices than a book. “Does digital media
displace the leisure time people once spent on legacy media? We find
that the answer is yes,” she said.
The racial and gender breakdown of the surveyed group roughly matched
national demographics, and the main findings did not vary
according to race, gender or socioeconomic status, Twenge said. There
was one slight difference between the sexes: Girls reported visiting
social media sites more often than boys, while boys reported spending
more time on video games.
The survey question asking students whether and how often they read
books, magazines and newspapers did not differentiate between print and
electronic versions of these items. Twenge acknowledged that this could
mean the study’s results underestimate or discount the amount of time
high-schoolers spend reading online.
But this is unlikely, especially with regard to books, she said. The
study cites previous research in support of the idea that students view
books and e-books as falling under the same umbrella, meaning the
study’s findings probably pretty accurately reflect teenagers’ reading
habits.
Twenge, herself a mother of three, said she suspects many parents will
find the new study worrisome. Not only could less time spent reading
translate to poorer performance in college, but also social media usage
has been shown to lead to increased social isolation and mental health
issues.
So, what can parents do to make their teenager put down the phone and
crack open a book?
The solution can require a complicated dance between coercion and
suggestion, said Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the
University of Virginia and the author of “Raising Kids Who Read.”
The first step is prying your kids away from their screens, Willingham
said. But don’t tie lack of screen time to enforced reading. Don’t, for
example, take your teenager’s phone and tell him he can have it back
once he has read for 30 minutes.
“This is not the way we treat things that we want to teach children are
pleasurable,” Willingham said. “I mean, think about it. You would never
think of coercing your child into having a piece of cake.”
Instead, when enforcing a temporary ban on devices, make sure that
books are the second-best option available (after the forbidden
screens) to stave off boredom. One way to do this, according to
Dean-Michael Crosby, a teacher at a school in England who often advises
parents on this issue, is to “litter your house with eye-catching
titles.” He suggested leaving books lying around the living room, the
kitchen, even the bathrooms.
“Even if they pick one up to browse as they’re waiting for the kettle
to boil, that might be just the book for them,” Crosby said. “That
might be the book that hooks them forever!”
Both Willingham and Crosby advised trying graphic novels. With their
abundance of pictures — coupled with more mature themes and
age-appropriate content — these books can help usher reluctant teens
into the world of literature.
Another way to instill a love for reading is to teach kids how useful
it can be. The next time your child comes to you with a question,
Willingham said, tell them to go find the answer by visiting a library
and reading about the issue on their own. Explain that books offer a
level of in-depth knowledge not available through the “instant
gratification” of the Internet.
Finally, it’s important to model good reading behavior. “That almost
goes without saying,” Willingham said. “If you’re nagging your child to
read, and you’re just sort of on Instagram all the time, why in the
world would they take that seriously?”
Read this and other articles at The Washington Post
|
|
|
|
