It’s doubtful that you could find many educators that believe that most children read enough. When I used to work in education, many professor were moving away from the traditional “open your books to page x” method. They were utilizing computers and projectors in the classrooms, videos, transparencies, etc… It appeared that the emphasis was to move from text to some other visual format. In other words, from words to pictures.

Does someone really learn better with pictures instead of words? The Pro argument would probably say that since the most recent generations have been raised on television, they are more likely to respond to images instead of creating mental images through text. The Con argument would point to something like Keitai Shosetsu.

Keitai Shosetsu is a novel in a format for a cell phone. Apparently, these are hugely popular in Japan, specifically among school age children. The sentences are shorter and chapters are easier to digest, given the small screen format.

But isn’t it just a novel all over again? Sure is. So… the question might be, “Are children more attracted to the medium than to the content?” Are high school student more likely to pay attention to a page on the Internet instead of a printed page? Is the same image less impressive when printed than displayed on a monitor? Are we truly more impressed by the number of pixels or the “new” tag on the bottom right hand corner?