In recent years, there has been a worrying increase in the amount of so-called “screen time” children are having, particularly down to the invention of smart devices, and it’s making them lose their passion for something great; reading.
In a survey by the National Literacy Trust, it was found that 54% of the 21,000 surveyed children said that they would rather watch TV than read a book.
Perhaps an even more distressing statistic is that 17% of them said that if they were seen reading by a friend, they would be embarrassed. But what has caused this downhill trend in the attitude toward reading?
Local primary school teacher in Bexley puts it down to “the growing popularity of tablets” and she isn’t wrong - around 55% of households in the UK own one or more tablet devices, and children are practically glued to them.
This epidemic is not only affecting younger kids, but is prolific in teenagers. A study by UCL found that only 14% of teenage girls read for pleasure, and even worse, only 7% of boys.
It is a shame to witness; book worms are becoming a forgotten group. Now that information and fantasy worlds exist at the tap of a screen, kids are becoming increasingly less dependent on books.
The crisis is not only impacting children’s ability to read at an earlier stage, but is also impacting their imaginations. Their brains are becoming hard-wired to programme and compute, but writing a simple metaphor can be a stretch.
Even 10 minutes of reading a day can make a child 13x more likely to be reading above their expected age, so why wouldn’t you make your child disconnect and dive into the world of make-believe, that so many generations found joy in before them?
