Do Children's E-Books Ruin Reading? 149
An anonymous reader writes "A fierce argument has begun over whether children are actually 'reading' new e-books or simply 'watching' them. As publishers pump increasing levels of interactivity into e-books, the New York Times and others argue that these highly-interactive, popular titles are ruining the purpose of reading. The NYT also worries that new e-book titles could distract kids from the tougher task of actually concentrating on literature: '[W]hat will become of the readers we've been: quiet, thoughtful, patient, abstracted, in a world where interactive can be too tempting to ignore?' Others, like Gizmodo, defend these new e-books, pointing at titles like Alice for the iPad, of which they blabber, 'For the first time in my life, I'm blown away by an interactive book design.' But, the NYT counters, 'What I really love [about traditional books] is their inertness. No matter how I shake Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, mushrooms don't tumble out of the upper margin, unlike the Alice for the iPad.'"
My 3 month old... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't consider myself a parent with any real life experience, being that I have only been one for 3 months, but I have some observations on how my son interacts with certain physical items in his new world:
1. He is not permitted to watch TV.
2. We read books to him a lot.
3. He listens to a lot of music tailored towards children (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIueuNdB2oM)
While he has some attention for books, especially ones where my mother recorded herself reading them and we play it for him while he listens, he has an amazing attention span for my iPhone or the TV. He will go out of his way to crane his neck around to look at the TV if it happens to be on (we don't watch much TV) or physically move himself to look at the TV if he is in a device which allows for him to do that.
I'm guessing that either he's fucking weird (certainly possible considering his parents) or all children love to watch shit. While he gets excited when I come home from work, it's nothing like he gets when he's watching my parents on Google Video Chat. If he's going to feel excited via a particular medium then I say I'm all for it--especially if it helps one particular child learn better than others.
Etude & Cat In The Hat (Score:4, Interesting)
I see it similar to the Etude music player on the iPhone. It's a MIDI player that highlights the notes on the sheet music and on a simulation of a piano keyboard as the music is being played.
The Cat in the Hat eBook has several modes, one of which highlights the text as a voice reads the words. Another of which lets the kid touch something in the drawing, says the word and highlights it in the text (if it's in the passage on that page).
Neither replaces an audio performance (like an iTunes song or an audio book), and neither of which replace the physical static medium (like a piece of sheet music or a book), but both make a nice interactive presentation to help the viewer's brain make the connection of these very different sensations.
A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Score:3, Interesting)
Diamond age (Score:3, Interesting)
The Primer also reacts to its owners' environment and teaches them what they need to know to survive and grow
some more info on his ideas about "mediatrons" as he calls them: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=214 [technovelgy.com]
e-ink, e-paper, ipad, not only technology changes, but the way people are educated too. now that they will have interactive textbooks, studying is not only going to be faster, but even more fun. anything from physics, chemistry, biology is going to be not only described, but shown. encarta of size of your palm. fantastic.
indeed, I think some books will be better off left as they are now. the main reason behind this is imagination and fantasy of reader. if you are shown everything, then there is barely some space for you imagination to fire up. it might be fun to roll and twist your ipad, but it might be even funnier to have all those characters shaped up by your imagination instead of imagination of the artist who worked on it. but this applies to less extent than the former case with textbooks. i guess it's great technology to have in overall.
Get a foreign language channel with cartoons... (Score:5, Interesting)
Get a foreign language channel with cartoons. Or two. Or three. Languages, that is. Probably at least as many channels as well.
My cousin was speaking English almost as good as her native language (Bosnian/Serbian) by the time she was 5-6 years old from all the Cartoon Network she watched.
Basically, she was speaking a foreign language before she learned to read or write.
She is now studying to be a professor of English.
Also, when your kid starts to read, don't shun the comics in favor of books.
If possible, get him some comics in the foreign language he is picking up from the cartoons.
Amazon has international sites, holding books in the local language. But there are also online communities that scan comics. Even those in "foreign" languages.
Re:The equation of truth (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought reading was about developing imagination (Score:4, Interesting)
Call me old fashioned but one of the reasons I have always enjoyed reading traditional books is because the author only drops the hints at what the world in the book looks like but I actually paint the complete picture. This is the same reason why most movies based on books don't do well, because it is extremely difficult to compete with what we imagined that world to be in the detail and besides the imaginary world is individual to each reader. No two worlds probably look the same.
Unfortunately, the more we get into the interactive books which try to replace the written word with pictures (or even the ones which try to augment it), the more would we be limiting our imagination and seeing it from someone else's eyes, which almost certainly would result in less "different" people in the world. Most of us on slashdot are evolutionists and we do appreciate that it is this difference which results in our species evolving. Hell, it could be that Da Vinci etc. probably started looking at flying because they had heard or read fairy tales where humans flew, which then one day was realised by incremental advance in science. So in some ways, we would be limiting our potential by relying more on the visual medium rather than imagining the world.
Big surprise. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
While I agree that the submitter was being a bit romantic in his depiction of the reader, you shouldn't dismiss his ideas simply because of it. One of my favorite elements of reading static text without any added illustrations is you get to use your imagination to fill in the blanks! TV basically just hands you all of the artwork and scenery but when you read, all you get is the jist from the author and it's up to you to weave those descriptions together with your imagination into something.
Adding all of these interactive elements robs children of the process of creating these images themselves. when they hear about XYZ in the story they willl just imagine the depictions that popped out of the margins in page 2 instead of their own mental image based on the description.
To me, this has always been one of the greatest strengths of literature and I would hate to see the importance of this cast aside in favor of profits/"oh look shiney shiney" mentality.
Re:The equation of truth (Score:3, Interesting)
"Like Marx Heinlein gets in some good jabs at democratic societies, and like Marx the alternative he suggests would be a nightmare if implemented."
Alright - first, allow me to point out that Heinlein's world in Starship Troopers represents a relatively stable world, AFTER they emerge from the real nighmare of anarchy.
But, that wasn't your point, nor is it mine.
I question whether that "nightmare" of Heinlein's world is any worse than what we have today. I mean, look at the United States. Unemployment is over 20% http://www.shadowstats.com/ [shadowstats.com] It seems that more people get welfare in various forms than actually work in this country. We see at least one state nearly paralyzed with the issue of illegal aliens. 1 in ten adult males are incarcerated and/or in the "criminal justice" system as a parolee, probation, or whatever.
The world in which 'Starship Troopers' is based actually looks pretty appealing to me.
But then, one man's meat is another man's poison, right? In Heinlein's world, I have already earned my citizenship, and I have the right to look down on the mere peons. In our world, here and now, there are any number of people who have more rights than I have, and my service to my country means just about squat.