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Jordan Johnston
English 1001
Jean Coco
11/29/2015
Audience: People worried about technology negatively affecting our way of life. I.E. middle
aged parents.
Preface
I like the topic of the essay, its something that has been very easy to work with and the research
isnt boring. I also think the topic has a very good support behind it. However, I feel like my
focus is very lacking in this essay. Out of all the essays that Ive written in this class, this draft
has been the hardest. I just seem to get stuck on information. I covered most, if not all, of my
sources and even at 900 so words Im still having trouble creating new paragraphs. I feel like the
information is kind of stale and repeated. So my biggest roadblocks are simply what to add. Im
at about 1000 words, so i just need that extra 500, but I cant find anything that will add to the
paper. Im just stuck with finding new and interesting information.

The Fallout of Reading

In todays world, many people may see reading as a dead hobby. Perhaps not dead, but

rather, unnecessary. But there was a point in every childs life when he or she enjoyed reading as
a pass-time. Recalling specific memories of sitting down with a fresh series, and beginning to be
sucked into the world the author wrote of. Becoming entranced by the story, eagerly wanting to
skip to the next page to find out what happened to the hero. But, those days seem to be long
gone for most people. Why is that? And what happened to them to cause them to lose interest in
something they once so amply enjoyed? The answer may be found simply in the device we keep
in our pocket. Our cell phone. Technology has and will continue to be a huge part of our lives,
especially when pertaining to the last 20 so years. New innovations and inventions come out
annually, and it takes away and distracts us from things we would normally do without
technology. Many adults today see these advances as threats to the things they already know,
and if they cant keep up with the new inventions it very much could be. But todays young have
been growing up with these changing devices, and know how to keep up with the innovations;
making them the most tech-savy generation in all of history

Children growing up these days have more access to technology and information than

any other generation. Kids born within the last 30 or so years are referred to as the millennial
generation. They are the people who have/are growing up with the technology around them, and
as a result, are able to comprehend and understand how to use the resources. Children seem to
begin to stop reading when they grow into the upper elementary through high school years,
because, especially within the last decade, those curriculums use technology more as a resource
than say a library. Students dont need to drive to a library to check out a book for a research
project anymore when they can just google the books title and find hundreds of articles on it.
Research projects have decreased in difficulty due to this ability to obtain information so fast,
and the children have grown accustomed to this speed. The conditioning of such speed has left
books in the dust, they are simply too slow for the tech-savy kids of today, and thats why
books are falling out of favor. More people would rather spend an hour and a half watching an
action-packed movie than spend several more hours, or even days, reading the text. We want
visuals, constant motion, and staring at a page full of text isnt very flashy or exciting.

Young News editor Max Hambleton writes a news article interviewing children about

how technology impacts their lives. When asked about how laptops have affected her, Antonina
Zielinsky, age 16, had this to say: Until I was in 7th grade, I didn't have a computer and my
family valued books a lot. I have walls of books in my house, so for research projects I was
usually able to just get a book and type it on my typewriter. By the time I was 12, I read my
whole library. After I got my computer, everything I did was online cause you could just type
things so much faster and you had everything online. This year, my history teacher is making us
go to an actual library and get books, which is really reminding me how we really don't
remember how to read books. This has been a concerning issue to most parents of these
millennial aged children; technology is causing, or will cause, illiteracy.
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Schools are beginning to recognize the takeover of the tech age and the concerns of

parents that come with it. As a result, schools have begun to supply their students with portable
e-readers; devices such as iPads, tablets, laptops, ect. They see that their students are more
drawn to the technological approach, and use it to their advantage. Kuo-Lun Hsiao and ChiaChen Chen conducted a series of tests in which they tested the viability of using e-readers over
regular books, and the results showed that using e-readers was just as, if not more, effective than
regular books. In fact, their article states that e-readers can actually improve the reading
comprehension of 3rd graders (Kuo-Lun Hsiao and Chia-Chen Chen 593).

Denise E. Agosto also argues in favor of technology, saying that it doesnt necessarily

have a negative effect on children. She argues that just because kids are spending more time
than ever online, it doesnt mean that they arent reading. Because they are spending time
online, they are most likely chatting with friends, playing games, something that requires social
interactions. Rachael Levy and Jackie Marsh state that these kinds of activities offer is the
opportunity for children to be engaged in social networks with interlocutors and they learn, from
their earliest years, what it means to be involved in the participatory culture of the new media
age. There is, therefore, widespread evidence that young children are confident and competent
users of a range of new technologies in the home and that they develop understanding and
knowledge relating to reading and writing on screens. (Agosto 37).
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People are becoming more concerned with how technology impacts our lives, especially

when it comes to things like reading. Overall, technology has had an impact on the desire to read
books, but not to read. E-readers have and will have an incredible impact on the literacy of
young children, and that impact is only going to get bigger as time goes by. Children are going
to evolve with technology and become more immersed in it. Theres really no way to prevent it,
so the only option is to use it to your advantage. Find all the helpful way that e-readers and
laptops can help one learn, and stop focusing on the negative effects.

Works Cited

Agosto, Denise E. "More than Just Books." More than Just Books 10.3 (2012): 36-40. Web. 19 Nov. 2015

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Considine, David, Julie Horton, and Gary Moorman. Teaching and Reading the Millennial Generation Through
Media Literacy. N.p.: International Reading Association, 2009. International Reading Association. Web. 18 Nov.
2015.

Gold, Stephen. "Boomers and Millennials: Make Way for the Exponentials."Boomers and Millennials: Make Way
for the Exponentials (2015): 1. Web. 19 Nov. 2015

Hambleton, Max. "Kids Discuss Role of Technology in Their Lives." The New York Amsterdam News [Amsterdam]
16 June 2005: 18+. Print.
Hsiao, Kuo-Lun. "How Do We Inspire Children to Learn with E-readers?" 33.4 (2015): 584-96. Library Hi Tech.
Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Mizrachi, Diane, and Marcia J. Bates. Undergraduates Personal Academic Information Management and the
Consideration of Time and Task-Urgency. N.p.: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, n.d. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 31 May 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.