Reading is becoming a lot art!

I know you are referring to the children of the DVD, TV, PC and so on but many of the adults where I live have not received much of an education and are unable to read or write. I don't know how most of them were able to obtain a driver's licence but there are ways around things. I'm talking of people from the bush, those remote areas of our country that are inhabited. I agree with what you are saying about the pictures that are conjured up when reading I think it's a lost art too.

The Amazon Kindle and its various ebook reader contemporaries have been hailed as groundbreaking devices,some of them with long battery life and features that make it simple to carry a library of books around with You..I'd be interested in hearing about the takeup of such gadgets and the demographics of those buying them,or who the recipients are,whether they'd be mature readers with a lifetime of enjoying reading books behind them,or if they'd be Young people getting into the habit..I've enjoyed reading since I was at school,and have been trying to keep up with the advances in the technology of portable reading since then..A regular book is the benchmark to beat..they can be light to carry,don't require batteries to use,you can lend them to your friends or borrow them from a library,and they can be recycled..though in demand,e-readers can't do everything a book can..yet..So You can carry a library of books around on an e-reader..but how many books can you read at a time? I've been told I'm getting a kindle as a belated Christmas Gift..I'm looking forward to it,now! I already have a "kindle for PC" program on my computer,and use Project Gutenberg and other online reader programs,and use a bookreading app on my phone..it'll be interesting to have a dedicated book reader ! I don't think reading is going the way of the Dodo as Yet..but it may evolve more as time goes on..!

Actually you could not be more that further from the Truth with this one. Reading is a lost art these days as kids are too interested in their XBox, their WII, their computers, watching movies, etc. Many times if you were to ask some kids what book they read last they will often look at you like "READ?" I don't like too, and have too many other things to occupy my thoughts.

I read four or five books each week, and my husband who was never a reader, now reads at least two books. I have many friends who won't leave home without their e-books. And now books can even be downloaded onto cell phones. I think the formats are changing more than anything. I hope...

I agree with you very much. I actually read a book about this! There was a child who read the Harry Potter books and drew the character from his imagination in class. Then his classmate made fun of him because she knew the "true" character, since she had seen the movie already. Kids are going to lack more and more imagination. Nobody makes their own toys anymore, either.

I do think of it specially some of the teens right now doesn't have much of imagination since they don't read anymore and experience their minds being swept away from the stories places or think of themselves as characters. I will surely buy my kids (in the future ) books and read it to them and I want them to be just like Mommy since I LoVE reading a LOT!!!

I've already seen it, but happily only in a few families. UNFORTUNATELY, those families are the ones having the most children! I can't say about that family with 19 kids, I hope not, but the roomie's niece and nephews are.

Not too much, not sure why...

The world is changing way too fast and books are, sadly, one of those things going by the wayside. I'm happy to see those tablets where you can download books, though. It's not a 'printed-on-paper' thing but it is reading the written word. I used to love going to the library and looking around to see what would catch my eye each time. I wish my kids had developed that love of reading but they haven't. One reason is that they are both male. I think reading has always been a more feminine thing, even back when I was young. Yeah, as a whole, we're using less and less of our imagination so reading books is becoming obsolete, except by the few of us who still prefer using our imagination. (You ought to see MY library! I'm going to need an entire room to devote to my books one of these days soon.) It is scary how fast the world is changing, isn't it? It won't be long before we'll never have to leave our homes for anything, well, except for delivery people. They can keep delivering the books I order.

In one way you are absolutely correct and it is very sad that as a whole there is far less reading than there used to be. However, some of these kids can surprise you these days. They can read manuals for their games and all sorts of crazy directions for cheats for their gaming devices! I think maybe with the new ereaders it might generate some more readers too. I have a friend who doesn't enjoy reading but I think it's because picking up a huge book can be intimidating. But she has begun to love reading on the ereader! go figure!

There is a reason to be worried because these newer forms of entertainment are more enticing than reading books. These things are surely disastrous to the reading habit of young people. But there is also a huge advantage that I can't deny. I was preparing for an exam and I had to read a lot of literature for that. As I was a student of engineering I didn't have much interest in reading high flown literary works. I didn't want to buy books apart from my studies as they were quite costly. So I started looking for them in places like project gutenberg and esnips. I managed to download books for free. I started reading them and invariably did well in my exam. I could do all that just because I owned a computer and an internet connection. I have also downloaded a TTS Reader that reads out texts aloud. All these new techniques increased my appetite for reading. Now I have become a voracious reader and can't go to sleep until I get my daily dose of reading.

Television is the biggest blow to our children's education. television takes away the time for reading from children. It is especially true for children in third world countries where TV is new and children are attracted ot it, it easy, interesting and needs less intellectual abilities to work the motive and moral of movies than to read a book. It affects reading, speaking and writing esepcially of English. It is true as you mentioned that we have to develop a discipline in bringing up our children. You set the example, buy books for our young children, throw TV away, and let them read. Thanks for bringing this up. Very important topic.

All of us need to have a good habit of reading. Now, with the development of Internet, more and more people don't read as much as before. I think that is too bad. I am really worried,too. For our children, we should help them to develop the habit of reading when they are very young. In fact, in China, most of the children spend more time on the computer. They like videos better because the can get the information without thinking. However, when you read, you have to think , that is so important.

Mam, you're absolutely right! Me too, had a childhood full of awesome books here in São Paulo, Brazil, and I'll be forever grateful to both of my parents. Thanks to the living habit of reading, School was always easier to me than it seemed to be to most of my coleagues. Even now, when I'm almost 30yo, I think the friends I like the most to talk about serious or complex subjects are the ones that share this skills, of reading a lot and therefore understanding reallity without superficial simplifications.