In this post which I am reposting with permission from Rich Adin of the blog An American Editor, he looks at the effects of ebooks on kid’s imagination and ponders the adverse effects that too much “enhancement” and videos and so on in an ebook can have on the way in which kids discover the world around them.
The word is with Rich, so read on…….
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eBook vs. pBook: Imaginative Discovery
Before anyone jumps to an unwarranted conclusion, let me say upfront that I really like ebooks for reading fiction (but not for nonfiction) and that given my personal preference, I would read fiction almost solely in ebook form. However, …
I have been observing my neighbor’s 4-year-old-son’s reading habits, sometimes getting a closeup view while babysitting. What I have noticed is that given a choice, he prefers pbooks to ebooks. I have been thinking about that for several months now and I think the reason is what I call imaginative discovery.
The ebooks give him animation, which he does find entertaining. But I think he finds the animation to be similar to how I find a movie: great entertainment but it is someone else’s imagination that shapes the scene, not mine. I especially noticed this with the Lord of the Rings movies. Peter Jackson did a great job imagining the story, and although I enjoyed the movies greatly, I also remember commenting to my son how this scene and that scene were not how I imagined them when I was reading the book. Peter Jackson did all the imagining for me; I had to exercise no creativity at all.
When my neighbor’s son reads a pbook, he often flips back-and-forth or even folds over pages so that he can see two illustrations simultaneously. Sometimes he takes crayons and colors black-and-white illustrations or adds another head to a character or changes the colors used. Occasionally he adds to the illustration additional characters or images. He interacts freely with the pbook and lets his imagination be his guide. He seems to find that difficult to do with an ebook, or is not motivated to interact with the ebook in a similar way.
It is this interaction that I call imaginative discovery. I think imaginative discovery is a very important component of reading, especially for those who are just beginning the lifetime adventure that reading can bring about. When adults watch a movie or play a video game, they tend to become absorbed into whatever action is occurring before them. They do not independently discover new things or use their imagination. They follow the creator’s storyline.
In contrast, when an adult reads a novel — whether ebook or pbook – the adult uses his or her imagination to fill in what is missing, whether it be dialogue or visualization of the scene. But adults do so from a lifetime of experience. As we grow from childhood to adulthood our sensory experiences grow and we are increasingly able to imagine that first kiss or how a teenager feels when bullied or how slimy a frog’s skin is. Because we have built this experiences, it really doesn’t matter whether the book we are reading is a pbook or an ebook – we bring those experiences to both. Thus our preference for an ebook over a pbook is really guided by other factors, such as cost, ease of reading, ability to carry hundreds of books simultaneously without back-breaking strain.
But the 4-year-old child doesn’t have that lifetime of experience to bring to the reading experience. He (or she) is only beginning on the road toi building the tools needed for imaginative discovery. Thus the tactile capabilities of a pbook may be more important than all of the enhancements that an ebook can bring.
Even for an adult, an ebook can be a failure. Consider these two books: Esther’s Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews (2002) edited by Houman Sarshar (ISBN 0827607512) and Five Hundred Years of Book Design (2001) by Alan Bartram (ISBN 0300090587). Each of these books relies heavily on visuals; that is, the illustrations — their detail and their color — are important to the tale being told. In neither case would reading the book on a Kindle or Nook be a quality experience. Not that they couldn’t be read on such a device; just that the experience would not be fulfilling. The books are really designed for the pbook experience.
Just as those books are really designed for the pbook experience, I am increasingly convinced that the reading experience for beginning readers should be a pbook experience rather than an ebook experience. The reason is not because ebooks cannot be excellent children’s books but because they are not able to give the emerging imagination the ability to imaginatively discover. The enhanced ebook experiences of such things as alternative endings or the ability to choose a different outfit for a character make for a wonderful tale but limit the child’s creativity to a set of predetermined choices, when, instead, the child should be encouraged to design their own creations.
The pbook for children encourages a child to start with what is in front of him or her and to then rename, redo, recast, reshape the story as they see fit. Should they want to rename a character from Oscar to Annafrannabumpkin, the child can with a pbook; with an ebook, they are limited by whatever the programmer has opted to include. It is easy to add a second horn to a unicorn and call it a duocorn in a pbook; not so easy with an ebook that doesn’t have the option already built-in.
eBooks have a place in the scheme of reading, but I do not think they are yet ready to replace pbooks as the source of reading material for children, simply because of the limitations inherent in ebook creation that stifle the imaginative discovery that is essential to the mental growth of children. When it comes to reading, what to read and how to read it (i.e., ebook or pbook) should always be based on what is best for the reader, and in the case of children, on how well imaginative discovery is promoted.
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Thus Rich’s views on enhanced ebooks.
As I wrote in a recent post here on this blog (link below) I feel very much the same as Rich when it comes to the desirability of highly enhanced ebooks as reading matter for kids, but I have to admit that he has expressed it rather more clearly than I managed in this admirably clear article.
Link to my previous post on this topic: http://www.ebookanoid.com/2012/07/16/interactive-and-enhanced-ebooks-for-kids-not-always-a-good-idea/
Link to Rich’s Blog: http://americaneditor.wordpress.com/
Share with us:
What are your views on this subject? Are enhanced ebooks a useful form of literature, or merely a plaything with very little educational use for kids? Do let us know your thoughts on this one, as enhanced ebooks are increasingly being touted as the best thing for kids since sliced bread.
