Is Twitter really turning children off books?

When former MI5 director and current Man Booker Prize judge, Dame Stella Rimington claimed that Twitter and mobile phones were diminishing reading, an age old debate was brought to the fore. 

Speaking to the Telegraph, Rimington said: “I think much of the Twittering and emailing and texting and all that sort of stuff that children go in for now may be taking their eyes off reading fiction. When I was young we read more than the average child reads now.”

Rimington was clearly sharing an opinion, rather than a robust piece of research, but various studies do back up her basic assertion that fewer children are picking up books for pleasure.

In 2007, the most recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study found that the amount of reading taking place outside of school had dropped since 2001.

We also lag behind other countries, with 33% of children in England and Scotland reading for pleasure, compared with the international average of 40%.

Last year, the National Literacy Trust research into reading habits found that children aged between nine and 14 were more likely to use social networking sites, emails, blogs and websites than pick up a book. Nickie @ Typecast believes that physical books are becoming a thing of the past, and that this is a real shame.

She says: “There is nothing to replace the scent of unread pages of a new book or physically feeling the weight of a book in your hand.“Our parents made so much effort to teach us about reading, from which my own love of writing grew, that I think we need to carry the torch forward.”

However, is there an issue of mixing channels in this resurging debate? When Rimington refers to ‘Twitter’ and ‘texting’ as a direct competitor to books, there is a mismatch. Texting, tweeting, blogging are all communication tools based on the written word, they’re not forms of passive consumption in the same way that hardcopy books are.

If the multitude of interactive platforms available to today’s children and teenagers has turned them away from flat, non-interactive books, it has not stopped them reading altogether.

Indeed, the market for children’s books on iPads is growing, while the Amazon claims that the kindle has increased book sales. “On average,” Amazon vice-president Russ Grandinetti told The New Yorker last year, Kindle users “buy 3.1 times as many books as they did 12 months ago.”

The march of progress will continue whether we – or Rimington – likes it or not. How many of us would give up the telephone and revert to letters, however nice a handwritten note may be on occasion? And how many of us still read a bedtime story to our children, whether it be one with cardboard flaps to lift or interactive stars and shapes to move around?

As Nickie says: “Tradition only fades out if we let it. We can embrace modern technology AND keep things traditional at the same time.”

Do you agree that online communication and texting is a threat to children’s appreciation of stories and books? Does your child use social networking sites and if so, do you see this eating into their reading or writing time?

About Holly Seddon

Holly Seddon is a writer, editor and community consultant and helped launched the community for Adoption UK, which won charity website of the year just 9 months later. She also writes a music blog.

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