Kids more likely to own a phone than a book

Fast on the heels of the last post : here is another shocker (to some) : that children in the UK are more likely to own a phone than a book!
Findings from National Literacy Trust research published on 2 June 2010 revealed that 86% of young people in the UK owned a mobile phone, while only 73% had books of their own. The study of over 17,000 young people revealed a strong link between both young people’s reading ability and access to books at home.
A thoughtful post by Chris Cameron on ReadWriteWeb suggests this mobile ubiquity need not be connected to any declin ein children's reading abilities. In fact mobiles give new opportunities for giving children access to content.

Kids' Reading skills

There's a debate (see New York Times : "Literacy debate R U really reading?" in the United States at present about whether kids read as their parents used to, and whether the Web is having a beneficial or pernicious effect. As Will Ricahardson says in Weblogg-ed
"As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.
But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write."
Should kids be taught to read online? Will Richardson thinks we do need to help them to navigate online reading sources and get a balance between print and digital. School librarians have a role here I would suggest. Surely there is huge richness in the content of the Web, fantastic opportunity for making connections, but at the same time the need to be able to read and comprehend a complex argument or follow a long narrative are skills which will need to be retained and fostered.

Is Google making us stupid?

Nicholas Carr begins his thought-provoking article by reminding us of the touching scene in Stanley Kubrick's file "2001" where HAL (the super computer) is gradually unplugged by the hero, and blurts "Dave, my mind is going, I can feel it. I can feel it".
Is something of the same happening to us today? Have we forgotten how to read? We know for instance from the CIBER report, that students power browse (and so do I).
The article is a good read, but teachers of reading (and librarians) will know that there has always been different types of reading (e.g. skimming). As they say "we need more research" to convince us that the Google generation not only doesn't read but can't read. Comments???