The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Scholastic

Books gather dust as teenagers are increasingly lured to Twitter & Facebook

Author

By John Glenday, Reporter

September 15, 2015 | 2 min read

Teenagers are increasingly shunning traditional printed books in favour of catching up on the latest tweets and profile updates streaming from Twitter and Facebook, according to a new study shining a light on the shift in behaviour.

Scholastic

The Kids & Family Reading Report, commissioned by children’s publisher Scholastic, found that whilst 54 per cent of six to eight year olds can be classed as frequent readers just 17 per cent of respondents aged 15 to 17 maintained this habit.

Accounting for this collapse the report authors cite the prevalence of new digital recreational activities such as web browsing and videogames with 76 per cent of 15 to 17 year olds logging into social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and 80 per cent using their smartphones for between five and seven days a week.

Catherine Bell, managing director of Scholastic, said: “The reading enjoyment does drop off significantly the older children get - reading competes with many, many other things for attention. And for over a third of kids aged six to eight watching videos on YouTube is already a significant distraction.

"We all need to play a part to make sure kids are inspired to read, have access to books, and have time set aside to sit down and read. We just need to make time in our busy lives and busy curriculum to make reading for pleasure a priority.”

Offering advice to parents seeking to prise their children away from screens and back to the page the report recommends parents take a more active role in reading to their children and for schools to set aside class time to reading.

Scholastic

More from Scholastic

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +