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Books or ebooks? Reading or e-reading?
- Divya Hari Rao
Editorial Team
Why Kindles are more popular?
The world lives around the vast ocean of technology and hence, it is impossible to have lived a day without looking at the screen. These modern gizmos have become more of a necessity than a luxury, for the masses. Everyone is busy. There is no time for oneself. In such a busy world, even the lives of children has become busier, all thanks to the nano versions of new technology released into the world. Inspite of the repeated warnings on the harms of overuse of these gadgets, the world continues to be dominated by them. We would have heard many people say that any kid born today is born with the programmed mind to operate these machines. But the question is that, can the child learn everything with the help of technology? Recently, I have been reading articles about how children these days refuse to read even a page from the book. Many parents, out of fear, tend to bring in colourful books that attract children to read. In some cases, parents tend to introduce kindles and tablets to their children, as the digital medium is more attractive and informative as well.
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Why Kindles are more popular?Â
Kindles and tablets have been highly praised for its effective medium of reading. Contrary to the popular belief that kindles may harm your eyes, it has been proved scientifically that using kindles is safer than tablets since it has unique lighting system, unlike the LEDs used in tablets. The LEDs used in kindles are mounted at the bottom of the kindle that shoots light towards the surface of the display, making it easier to read in the dark. This has made kindles a popular device of reading among children. It is also a beneficiary tool of learning as it has a dictionary installed in it that gives the meaning of the words, immediately rather than having to open a separate dictionary and search the words. Moreover, e-books available online are easily accessible and cheaper compared to the print books. This would definitely encourage parents to buy the light weighted gadgetrather than buying the thick, fat books that are heavy to hold and a bit expensive as well.
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What scientists say?
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Recent researches in neurosciences reveal that human beings use different parts of the brain while reading from the books and while reading from the screen. When we are reading from the screen, our brain tends to skim through the words in a non-linear fashion and spotting for keywords that prevents deep reading. What is deep reading? According to Nieman reports, deep reading is a concentrated kind of reading that we do while reading the print books. We immerse ourselves while reading these books and the reading happens in a linear fashion. This kind of reading allows the reader to reflect oneself and analyze the story. But this is not so in case of reading from the screen. Reading from the screen continuously, mutes the deep reading part of our brain which may slowly fade away, if not used. Adults were introduced to online reading even before kindles were developed. As a result, the technique used to read online is applied while reading kindles as well. This involves, quick reading and sometimes skimming through in a non-linear fashion. This prevents the habit of going back and re-reading the sentence or a chapter from the kindle.
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What to do?
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When a child begins to read, it is important that a child begins to read from the books rather than introducing him or her directly to the screen. A child needs to feel the book before he or she switches to kindles. It is necessary to activate the deep reading part of the brain in child than allowing him or her to read from the kindle. Also, the right age to introduce the kindles would be anywhere between ages 8-10. This would allow children to adjust to both ways of reading rather than getting used to only one form.
