One of the best ways to promote reading is to drive down the cost of books–just the opposite of what so many publishers want to do. Oh, for the days of the 50-cent paperback. If we really want children to read, not just play videogames, a well-stocked national digital library system with thousands of free titles could help. Don’t believe that costs can matter? Check out this gem from Reuters:
People in homes where the annual income is less than $35,000 a year spend about 50 percent more time a week playing video games than those in homes with incomes above $74,000, according to a study released Tuesday.
The study from Jupiter Research, released at the start of a two-day games industry conference in Los Angeles, also found that overall, teenagers spend less time playing games than watching TV, going online or listening to the radio. However, game playing occupied more of their time than reading books and magazines, it said.
Video game hardware and software sales topped $10 billion in the United States alone in 2002, and the industry generally considers boys and young men between the ages of about six and 24 as its target audience…
“Because video games are cost-effective entertainment, consumption statistics skew toward low-income households for console penetration, time spent playing games, and number of titles purchased,” the Jupiter report said.
Something for Pat Schroeder to chew on, in between her jousts with librarians? If she’s still a “child advocate,” she’d better wake up. What’s more, it isn’t as if good publishers would go bankrupt with a TeleRead-style model in effect.
(Reuters/CNN item via the Yale LawMeme.)
