Games and Learning

Tap, Click, Read offers parents and teachers a more useful way to view technology, argues Shapiro.

When it comes to kids and parenting, the conversation around digital media and screen time has become boring and predictable. Folks worry about the impact of video games, apps, tablets, and smartphones.

The most absurd paranoid narratives echo the same ones that seem to accompany all technological shifts: that screens will cause physical damage (in this case, either neurological or ocular) to the natural human body. This monstrous fear is animated by the same Frankenstein story that makes up the essential foundation of films like The Terminator—that our own creations will eventually turn on us.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was originally published in 1818. But a distrust of technology is not unique to the post-Enlightment era, nor the modern world. The mold may have originated a few centuries earlier. In Jewish folklore of the middle ages, it shows up in the story of the Golem—a clay man who, when the name of God is spoken into its ear, comes to life and terrorizes the town. Or, perhaps this story had already taken flight among the ancient Greeks. In their mythology, the story of Daedalus and Icarus (among others) bears similarities—the legendary inventor is cursed to suffer tragedies instigated by the faith he places in his own creations.

All of these stories express the worry that humans have little control over our own innovations. But more interesting still, they elucidate the fear of a disconnect between mind and body. They express a sense of uneasiness that our intellectual lives and our corporeal lives sometimes seem to function in opposition to one another. Humanity always seems to be concerned that what think we want isn’t always necessarily in our own best interest.

In addition, we express paranoia around the social consequences of screen time. This worry shows up in popular rhetoric that spins in a slightly different direction. It metaphorically holds that civilization is tied together by a fraying thread and each new technology threatens to unravel the fiber that holds things together. This fear is implicit in Sherry Turkle’s recent New York Times piece. She wrote:

We are tempted to think that our little “sips” of online connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation. But they don’t. E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, all of these have their places — in politics, commerce, romance and friendship. But no matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation.

She frames it as a social shift from conversation to connection, focusing on what’s lost in a new paradigm of communication, while barely recognizing the flip side: what’s gained. Read work like Turkle’s with an eye toward making more intentional and reflective choices about how you live with technology. But don’t get caught up in the socio-apocalyptic fantasy. Remember: it’s always the end of the world as we know it.

By making it an either/or question, Turkle creates a false polarization. Why is she lamenting the harm caused by new technologies rather than promoting the use of techno-connection to stimulate a more sophisticated kind of conversation? These things are not in opposition to one another, they can and should be complimentary. All you have to do is ignore Silicon Valley’s silly marketing—technology is not about disruption or revolution; it is the slow steady crawl of ordinary human progress.

In fact, if you take some time to reflect, it becomes clear how absurd it is to fear that tech will destroy our social interactions—or should I just say: society. After all, civilization itself is a product of human technological ingenuity. Abstractly speaking, we should understand governance, debate, and language all as social technologies. Or, if you want to stick with a purely mechanical definition of technology, just consider the fact that innovations such as bread ovens, domestication of livestock, agriculture and irrigation are what steer the human animal toward communal living in the first place. Technology tends to be the thread that pulls us tighter together, not the crowbar that threatens to tear us apart.

A fantastic new book by Lisa Guernsey and Michael H. Levine, Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens, sees things from this perspective. It recognizes that new technologies are not threatening an old way of life, but rather offering tools to help us improve it.

Their focus is on literacy and they acknowledge that digital information technologies have changed things. “The digital age brings a paradox: as workplaces become increasingly dependent on the exchange of information, good reading skills are more important than ever. And yet children and their families are increasingly surrounded by new tools and digital distractions that affect the act of reading and communication.” But, “it’s not a foregone conclusion that TV or screen-based technology is holding children back or making them lousy readers.” In fact, “watching a character, story, or concept can motivate a child to seek out books and magazines about that character story or concept.” What kids need is adults—parents, teachers, caregivers—who can leverage the appeal of screen content to encourage more interaction with the written word.

Guernsey and Levine offer a desperately needed road map for how we might integrate new and old technologies (remember: the book, written language, and printing are all technologies). How can both work together in ways that will improve the process of teaching and learning literacy skills? “We want to stop seeing technology and reading as in opposition to each other,” they write, “and instead start building places, online and off, that put media in service of literacy and critical thinking skills.”

Their solution: adopt a “Tap, Click, Read mindset.”

• Tap: Tap into new networks of learning. “Today’s media allow for educators and families to access rich worlds of content and ideas beyond their homes and communities.”
• Click: To click is to make a decision. “Marketers and their clickbait have made us think we have no choice. But clicking is not and should not be mindless.”
• Read: “Reading will always be a critical skill and a key barometer of progress. You cannot fully function in the twenty-first century without being able to read.”

I think the book, Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens, is a must read for parents and educators. But what’s most exciting about it is that I think it shows us just how desperately we need more writing of this kind.

Enough with the technophobia already! For better or worse, digital information technologies are here to stay. The narratives of doom and gloom are just not useful. What we desperately need, however, is more wisdom that helps us learn how to integrate new technologies into our lived experiences.

Editor’s Note: One of the book’s authors, Michael Levine, is director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. The Center is also responsible for this site. Also, Jordan Shapiro’s article originally ran at Forbes.com and is reprinted here with permission from the author.