The Cell Phone Book: Interactive Literacy for New Media
Mike Elgan over at Computerworld has a nice column discussing the much ballyhooed indicators showing a decline in reading and literacy since the early 20th Century. People just don’t read anymore, and Elgan points out where Steve Jobs said much the same thing recently (good thing they still listen to music, ay?).
But then, Elgan points out that half of the top 10 best selling books in Japan last year started out as cell phone books.
The books-on-phones genre started when a home-page-making Web site company realized that people in Japan were writing serialized novels on their blogs, and figured out how to autocreate cell phone-based novels from the blog entries.
The popularity of these blog novels on cell phones sparked huge interest among readers in writing such novels. Last month, the site passed the 1 million novel mark.
Some of these amateur writers become so famous on the cell phone medium that the big publishing houses seek them out and offer lucrative deals for print versions. The No. 5 best-selling print book in Japan last year, according to the [New York] Times, was written first on a cell phone by a girl during her senior year in high school.
Contributing to the cell phone book craze in Japan are long commutes where book reading is hard to do, but scanning the ubiquitous cell phone is easy and convenient. The Japanese have figured out a way to make reading participatory, through cell phones and blogs explains Elgan. In America, participatory entertainment such as videogames are squeezing out passive entertainment. Thus the decline in reading.
At least, the decline in reading of books. Elgan points out something I’ve long held to be true: students are reading and writing gobs of data through text messaging, videogaming, e-mailing, web surfing, etc. etc. I look at the volume of words processed by my kids in online games such as World of Warcraft, and can only marvel at the typing speeds they’ve attained.
It boils down to literacy events in the life of a child. The exposure to text, in whatever venue, increases the reading and writing skills of children. If children read a book, a comic book, or the story line in a videogame, they are reading. And that makes all the difference.
References:
Elgan, M. (2008, January 31). Elgan: Will cell phones save books? Computerworld. [Online.] Available: http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic
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February 5, 2008 at 11:06 pm
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February 6, 2008 at 9:01 am
Actually for those of us who are not native english speakers, there is another huge and powerful argument for reading those so called “new media” - it exposes us to the english language in a way a teacher could never accomplish in classroom. So, not only literacy in our native languages is affected. (I suppose it might be similar for native english speakers who get to read spanish, french, etc. but being a native speaker of english is obviously not really an experience I am going to get this live
)
A decline in reading is certainly only true, if you only look at reading as “reading paper books” or “reading paper news-carriers”. Because honestly, so much of our current economy is based on the written word, a really illiterate generation would cause a lot more than a “simple” recession!
February 7, 2008 at 8:01 am
[...] a distinguished post today on “The Cell Phone Book: Interactive Literacy For New Media.” Here’s a quick excerpt: Mike Elgan over at Computerworld has a nice column discussing the much ballyhooed indicators showing a decline in reading and literacy since the early 20th Century. People just don’t read anymore, and Elgan points out where Steve Jobs said much the same thing recently (good thing they still listen to music, ay?). But then, Elgan points out that half of the top 10 best selling books in Japan last year started out as cell phone books. [...]
February 7, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Dionadar - I agree with your point. Prior to the Internet and other digital technologies, second language learners were limited to such things as newspapers, books, and shortwave broadcasts in the desired tongue. Now, ample literature is widely available through the net and games and web based video, etc.
Your second point is also well taken, in that declines in reading may be marked in “dead tree” media, however reading continues in the digital age. Witness our current exchange via text, albeit digital text.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
JR
February 12, 2008 at 11:41 am
Great post, and it is fascinating how technologies (such as cell phones) or lifestyle changes (such as telecommuting) lead to innovations!
February 12, 2008 at 11:43 am
One more thought - would you consider expanding upon your post and submitting it for a column for eLearn Magazine - http://elearnmag.org - thanks! -Lisa
February 12, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Dr. Neal - thanks for the comments. I’d be delighted to submit for eLearn Magazine. Please check your e-mail for my ideas on the column content.
JR
February 17, 2008 at 1:01 pm
[...] you enjoy the games. Currently he cross-promotes EDU Blaster with knowitall.org. In the works is a cell phone book implementation, featuring the classics at first and perhaps original fiction in the [...]