There's a lock on the TV for a reason.

[elfs]

Last night, Kouryou-chan and I played a couple rounds of Boggle, the word game where you're given a grid of sixteen random letters and told to make up as many words as you can, with rules about letter re-use and letter proximity to limit your possibilities. It's a great game; I've always enjoyed playing it. And needless to say, I did indeed kick her butt at it, with scores like 21 to 8, but the fact that she kept trying, even when she knew I was going to win, was very heartening.

Afterward, I gave her a couple of puzzles, and she came up with some on her own, based upon the notion of abstraction. It was typical "one of these things" testing: Hammer, Saw, Axe, Log. I pointed out to her that people who don't read (and I mean, don't read at all) can't see any difference between these; their brains don't have the abstracting ability of readers. Preliterate cultures think our abstraction "tool" is somewhat crazy: when forced to make a decision, one group (Russian villagers in the 1940s) tossed out hammer on the grounds that saws, axes, and logs were all components of the task "make firewood."

We had a conversation about categoricals; one list she had was "snow, lights, pine trees, flowers," and I said "lights" because it was man made, and she said, "no, flowers, because the rest are all Yule things." I pointed out that "lights" wasn't enough to go on; we had lights all the time and she meant "decorative lights."

I mention all of this because the National Endowment for the Arts has released it's 2007 survey of readership (useful: Executive Summary (PDF)) and discovered that, while in 1982, 56.9 percent of Americans had read a novel for pleasure, it had fallen to 46.7 percent in 2002. This year, the NEA reports, the number of Americans who can "compare viewpoints in different editorials" has fallen from 15% to 13%. (Holy moly; 87% of Americans can't discern the viewpoint of an editorial‽‽‽ No wonder we're all so screwed up!)

I mean, think about this: I read a little every day. I have a stack of "to read" books a half-mile high. This puts me (and you, I bet) into the 36% minority of the population that reads every day for pleasure, who experience "that fruitful miracle of a communication with another way of thinking, all the while remaining alone, that is, while continuing to enjoy the intellectual power that one has in solitude and that conversation dissipates immediately," as Proust described it. (I feel a little guilty writing that; I tried, I really did, to read In Search of Lost Time; so many people I trust have told me that finishing it is a life-changing experience, but it was so windy and slow I couldn't. Maybe I should conquer that, just so I can say I did it. I might even understand Serial Experiments Lain better. I'm told the Davis translation is better than the Moncreif, but it's not available as an e-book.)

All told, the evidence is mounting that my best bet would be to throw out the television altogether, but I'm not quite willing to do that yet. Kouryou-chan is nearly addicted to the thing, and this week has been hard on her since she lost all TV privileges earlier because of misbehavior (mostly, lying to us about how much TV she had watched and sneaking down to watch more when she'd used up her daily time). Part of the problem,I think, is that when I'm reading I don't look like I'm reading; I'm just holding a shiny metal box that I always have with me. It's not "a book," it's my planner-- calendar, notepad, agenda, todo list, address book, shopping list, meditation timer, English-Japenese dictionary, client tracker, and, oh yeah, an e-book reader with 50 novels in it at the moment.

Still, it's more grist for my mill. Ironic that you're reading this, no?

[Hat tip: Caleb Crain, Twilight of the Books, New Yorker magazine, December 24, 2007]

Comments

[katybeth]

We had a conversation about categoricals; one list she had was "snow, lights, pine trees, flowers," and I said "lights" because it was man made, and she said, "no, flowers, because the rest are all Yule things." I pointed out that "lights" wasn't enough to go on; we had lights all the time and she meant "decorative lights."

She didn't specify man-made lights, either. The sun and stars are not man-made. :-)

I like variations on that game where any of the elements can be viewed as the odd one out, by classifying them differently (like your "make firewood" example). Bonus if none of the classifications seems like a stretch.

[norikos-author.livejournal.com]

My initial choice on reading it was to toss out 'pine trees', as it was more specific than the rest -- it specified a specific type of tree, rather than the general class of 'trees'.

[blaisepascal]

Have you considered playing Zendo with her?

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

I love Zendo, but I'm not very good at it.

It'd be a good one to get Yamaraashi-chan in on too. She's also a pretty sharp cookie with logic puzzle type games.

[blaisepascal]

I was thinking for the girls a modified Zendo. Instead of playing with Icehouse pieces, play with words. The domain is people: "Yamaraashi" is white, "Mohandas Ghandi" is black.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

I haven't had cable/reception in years. We do have a TV, with a dvd/vcr player, and I do let the kids play computer games on it sometimes,but it's SO much easier to both monitor and limit when there isn't the temptation of clicking it on to 'see what's there'.

I remember being a kid who lived for tv in front of The Muppets on Thursday night. I don't see a problem with that until it turns into "bored...what's on..." Fortunately our reception in New Hampshire was severely limited and sporadic, and the two channels in Antigua were off more than on.

A subject deat to my heart

[graydancer.livejournal.com]

I hooked my kids on reading using one simple, evil trick. Bedtime was 8:30 - unless they wanted to read, in which case it was 9pm. Those were the only options - sleep or read. And oh how I smiled the first time my daughter brought home a report card with a note that they "read too much in class."

Now none of my kids go anywhere without a book. They also have their MP3 players, they watch tv (usually with a book in their hand) and still their favorite holiday gift is a Borders or B&N Gift Card.

I don't think it has to be either-or; I don't think that TV is the root of why many people don't read nowadays. I think it's more lack of time, but then again, that might just be me.

Re: A subject deat to my heart

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The NEA study, sadly, disagrees with you: the fall in literacy is directly attributable to the rise of television. It's a pretty consistent result: 2/3rds of the population, when given a choice, would rather watch TV than read a book, and make their choices accordingly.

No, that doesn't disagree.

[graydancer.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it wasn't a factor; I said it doesn't have to be. You can raise people to do both. Hell, I had very few constraints on my tv watching, and choose to read on a regular basis. How many kids chose to forego their TVs and pick up a Harry Potter book, for example? I'm not saying the NEA study is inaccurate in what it chose to measure; I simply feel that the entire picture is a bit more varied than what they chose to measure.

Incidentally, I also wonder about other cultures. While traveling in Mexico recently, I noticed far more actual words on the buildings than you see in the U.S. I wondered what that did to the literacy rate (and spelling abilities) of people there as opposed to here.

Mea culpa

[graydancer.livejournal.com]

I did say "it wasn't the root" and that does disagree with the NEA. So, yes, I didn't re-read my own post closely enough.

Still don't think it has to be that way.

Re: No, that doesn't disagree.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

There is the cultural difference. I remember an acquaintance of mine from Italy saying "I love your country. People on the buses are reading!" Apparently, a bus full of people just staring off into space was pretty common where she came from. She's a professional translator of fiction by trade, so seeing a country where the market was visible thrilled her.

Re: A subject deat to my heart

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in what other factors may be involved in the correlation. For a couple of personal annecdotes...

1. I grew up with the TV on all the freakin' time (many of my sibling fights were over the boob tube). However, at the same time, we were reading books. Even now I'll read and watch a program at the same time (less face it, with most programs that's not difficult).

2. I had a friend who grew up with no TV in the house. Whenever she'd come over to my place to play she'd get sucked into the TV like it was a black hole. I learned to factor at least an hour in to losing her until the fascination wore off enough to engage her in an activity. Whereas my friends who had TV's could take it or leave it.

3. I also used to turn the TV on for some noise when I lived alone. Sometimes I needed to just hear human voices. But I couldn't stand to have it on all the time like housemate does.

Re: A subject deat to my heart

[grum]

I, unfortunately, given the omnipresence of televisions, am seemingly unable to ignore a television in my line of site. This includes ball games in restaurants, news programs I cannot hear in the airport, mini-televisions in the back of other people's cars, you get the point. Most of the time it's simply annoying. Sometimes it's downright dangerous. I cannot not pay attention and do something else.
Oh, how I wish I could. Or maybe I just wish people would turn the dang things off. Depends on my mood.

[jry.livejournal.com]

Have you played with WEBoggle (http://weboggle.shackworks.com/)? Multi-player (there are 111 people playing 4x4 as I write this) so the scoring is absolute rather than disqualifying words others found. A not-very-visible feature is the ability to combine finds with other players by all using the same name starting with the word Team. Also has a 5x5 board (words of >=4 letters). The dictionary is perhaps a bit over-permissive. Fun, though.

Thank you.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

You're evil. That's an addictive game.

Re: Thank you.

[jry.livejournal.com]

:-) Sorry.

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

I read nigh-constantly for pleasure - but these days it is mostly non-fiction. I manage to fit in a novel here and there, but I read a stack of magazines each month (dead-tree variety) pretty much cover to cover, and then I read some things electronically via AvantGo on my Treo. And then blogs are another realm entirely.

Even when I read books, I often read non-fiction - history, aviation geek books, etc.

Reading is fun. I enjoy reading Aviation Week. The information is of no real practical use for me, but I'm an aviation geek and I enjoy knowledge for its own sake.

I can't really imagine life without reading.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Cripes, I'm part of the 13%. How flipping ignorant can you be when you can't discern opinion?

[shunra.livejournal.com]

In 2006 we ended up putting the TV on the street with a "Free" sign after two years passed when no one turned it on, for anything. We still watch stuff on computer screens, though.

When my daughter was much smaller (3, 4, 5), she had an addiction to TV. It was painful to see her after the one hour a day she was allowed was turned off - she was clearly going off powerful trip, and it didn't look like a good one (and it was solely PBS fare; how badly could Mr. Rogers hurt her? Plenty, it seemed).

We resolved it by making a rule: she could watch TV (well, PBS or borrowed videos) as much as she wanted as long as she had spent at least one hour outside, playing.

It turned out that playing was a very engrossing sort of activity, and she wouldn't stop at one hour. She made friends with some neighbors (ages from 4 to 70) and learned how to swing without being pushed. The window of opportunity for watching TV just kind of lost its allure - after school & play, before dinner and family play... ...there's not much time there.

By the time summer came around, she was already reading for fun (Garfield; copious amounts of Garfield) and had lost the urgency of keeping up with "her programs".

It took about two more years before we evicted the TV. I'd broken the habit in '85, my son had never had any interest whatsoever in it, my husband watched some stuff but found it dull, overall. And when we had time to veg, we both far prefer doing so in front of the computer screens. I'd replaced the boob tube with NetHack. Go figure.

I've been ruminating about the path this took for years. I never wanted to be that nasty, controlling, "you can't have any TV" parent; I certainly did keep my daughter away from the sort of exciting, enticing, "page-turner" TV programs that keep your attention riveted with cliff-hangers. She's now 9, and at this moment she and her dad are watching a documentary called Slavery in America (which they report is "fascinating"). She reads for pleasure, and has been suspected by her classmates of sleeping with a thesaurus under her pillow. (Hah. Where would it fit, among the stuffed animals?) She reads voraciously, and (with a teacher's encouragement) writes a great deal. Is any of that because we did things right? Her brother reads voraciously but won't write to save his life; her dad and I read voraciously and write/translate both professionally and for fun. Are we modelling this behavior? Why was the TV watching so painful for her as a young girl? Is my "method" something that could be successfully repeated (engage child with "real life" instead of the on-screen emulation, trusting the real to be more compelling)?

I wish I knew. My kids ended up being pretty much like me, but I only have two. What if I'd have had a non-reader? A close friend of mine has a kid who cannot read - fifteen, beautiful, and illiterate. I can't imagine a life so impoverished.