we have phones and tables to blame. The less of those, the more of reading.
The acceleration point for both age groups studied is 2012. What happened that year? The article doesn't try to answer this. Might be mentioned in the study I suppose.
The real culprit is probably more in line with far more alternatives to reading for entertainment.
Not a rigorous response, but Minecraft.
Kids were playing a ton of online games before Minecraft.
Yes and no
Up until the 2010s I think it was still a lot less socially normal to play a lot of games. We reached a tipping point somewhere that went from gaming being a sometimes activity for kids to basically every kid plays games
Most of the people in my high school in the 2000s didn't play games as a primary hobby. Only a few of my friends had a PC for games or a console. It wasn't nearly as ubiquitous as it is now.
My guess is smartphones hitting a point of increased adoption. In the "good old days", phone games were honest and not addiction-inducing adware..
you kidding me? they were absolutely addicting. Just not casino style.
Anecdotally, 2012 is when I got back in to reading for pleasure, as a 16-year-old. I had no friends though, and thought someone cute might see me reading and become interested in me.
Prior to that, I stopped reading because video games were easy to get lost in endlessly. At the time, I recall I was probably playing a lot of League of Legends, TF2, Minecraft, and probably some others -- all of which I felt I could pretty much sink an infinite amount of time into, at the time.
Do internet comments count as reading?
I don't know if kids are even reading comments. There's another perfectly good video with just a quick swipe.
I am not reading either for pleasure. I am reading so much during my daily life (Documentation, coding, manuals, logs) that reading for pleasure sounds like a bad joke.
That difference is like comparing taking a piss and having sex. While you use the same body part the experiences are not at all alike.
we have phones and tables to blame. The less of those, the more of reading.
The acceleration point for both age groups studied is 2012. What happened that year? The article doesn't try to answer this. Might be mentioned in the study I suppose.
Possibly (probably?) a coincidence, but it did look like broad changes to how reading was taught started to land in 2010-2012: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/common-standards-dr...
The real culprit is probably more in line with far more alternatives to reading for entertainment.
Not a rigorous response, but Minecraft.
Kids were playing a ton of online games before Minecraft.
Yes and no
Up until the 2010s I think it was still a lot less socially normal to play a lot of games. We reached a tipping point somewhere that went from gaming being a sometimes activity for kids to basically every kid plays games
Most of the people in my high school in the 2000s didn't play games as a primary hobby. Only a few of my friends had a PC for games or a console. It wasn't nearly as ubiquitous as it is now.
My guess is smartphones hitting a point of increased adoption. In the "good old days", phone games were honest and not addiction-inducing adware..
you kidding me? they were absolutely addicting. Just not casino style.
Anecdotally, 2012 is when I got back in to reading for pleasure, as a 16-year-old. I had no friends though, and thought someone cute might see me reading and become interested in me.
Prior to that, I stopped reading because video games were easy to get lost in endlessly. At the time, I recall I was probably playing a lot of League of Legends, TF2, Minecraft, and probably some others -- all of which I felt I could pretty much sink an infinite amount of time into, at the time.
Do internet comments count as reading?
I don't know if kids are even reading comments. There's another perfectly good video with just a quick swipe.
I am not reading either for pleasure. I am reading so much during my daily life (Documentation, coding, manuals, logs) that reading for pleasure sounds like a bad joke.
That difference is like comparing taking a piss and having sex. While you use the same body part the experiences are not at all alike.
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