Kids have reasons for not reading a book just for fun
By Greg Toppo
USA Today
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Many kids in the U.S. are too busy, too distracted and, in some cases, too tired to read books for fun, a new survey finds, suggesting that schoolwork, homework and diversions such as YouTube and Facebook keep them from regularly enjoying a good book.
The findings, released yesterday by children's publisher Scholastic, echo those of the National Endowment for the Arts, which last year said that, from 1984 to 2004, the percentage of 17-year-olds who "never or hardly ever" read for fun rose from 9 percent to 19 percent.
The new survey finds that, on average, one in four kids reads for fun every day — but that 22 percent rarely, if ever, do.
And as kids get older, it finds, the percentage who rarely read for fun grows from 8 percent to 37 percent.
About one in four say they "have trouble finding books that I like," a breathtaking admission in the age of chain bookstores, librarians' blogs and blockbuster children's series such as "Harry Potter."
"There are millions of books out there," said Kristen Harmeling, a researcher at Yankelovich, the research firm that conducted the survey. "But finding the right book for the right kid at the right time, that's the challenge."
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Also, kids age 9 or older don't really see much difference between reading a book and reading online, according to the survey.
"Kids don't have that vision" of the Internet as detracting from books, Harmeling said. "They see them as supplementing each other."
In fact, nearly two-thirds say they've trawled the Internet for information on a book or author, visited fan Web sites or written an online book review.
But in the survey of 501 children and their parents, polled last winter in 25 major cities, kids give several reasons why they don't read for fun, including:
To John Hutton, co-owner of Blue Manatee Children's Bookstore in Cincinnati, the findings suggest that kids need more unstructured play time and less screen time, either in front of the TV or on the Internet.
"Kids are really stressed and over-structured," he said.
Hutton, himself a pediatric resident at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, said parents are crunched for time, too — and reading to children "is often the only one-on-one downtime that parents will see with their kids."
Hutton said he and his wife restrict the amount of time their three kids spend online and watching TV — and they won't let them have computers or TVs in their bedrooms.
"A little boredom," he said, "is a good thing."
