tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/digital-text-27231/articlesDigital text – The Conversation2021-05-03T12:04:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1595222021-05-03T12:04:49Z2021-05-03T12:04:49ZWhy we remember more by reading – especially print – than from audio or video<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397136/original/file-20210426-13-1rudtwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6048%2C3974&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When mental focus and reflection are called for, it's time to crack open a book.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/person-wears-a-protective-face-mask-while-reading-a-book-in-news-photo/1267783085">Noam Galai/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the pandemic, many college professors abandoned assignments from printed textbooks and turned instead to <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/02/24/faculty-turned-digital-materials-lieu-print-textbooks-after-pandemic-hit">digital texts</a> or multimedia coursework. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.american.edu/profiles/students/nbaron.cfm">professor of linguistics</a>, I have been studying how electronic communication compares to traditional print when it comes to learning. Is comprehension the same whether a person reads a text onscreen or on paper? And are listening and viewing content as effective as reading the written word when covering the same material? </p>
<p>The answers to both questions are often “no,” as I discuss in my book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-we-read-now-9780190084097?cc=us&lang=en&">How We Read Now</a>,” released in March 2021. The reasons relate to a variety of factors, including diminished concentration, an entertainment mindset and a tendency to multitask while consuming digital content.</p>
<h2>Print versus digital reading</h2>
<p>When reading texts of several hundred words or more, learning is generally more successful <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-enduring-power-of-print-for-learning-in-a-digital-world-84352">when it’s on paper</a> than onscreen. A <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-we-read-now-9780190084097?cc=us&lang=en&">cascade of research</a> confirms this finding.</p>
<p>The benefits of print particularly shine through when experimenters move from posing simple tasks – like identifying the main idea in a reading passage – to ones that require <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858550">mental abstraction</a> – such as drawing inferences from a text. Print reading also improves the likelihood of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2016.1143794">recalling details</a> – like “What was the color of the actor’s hair?” – and remembering <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00038">where in a story events occurred</a> – “Did the accident happen before or after the political coup?”</p>
<p>Studies show that both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.08.001">grade school students</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2017.1411877">college students</a> assume they’ll get higher scores on a comprehension test if they have done the reading digitally. And yet, they actually score higher when they have read the material in print before being tested. </p>
<p>Educators need to be aware that the method used for standardized testing can affect results. Studies of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2012.12.002">Norwegian tenth graders</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2018.12.007">U.S. third through eighth graders</a> report higher scores when standardized tests were administered using paper. In the U.S. study, the negative effects of digital testing were strongest among students with low reading achievement scores, English language learners and special education students.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2016.11.008">My own research</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197444">that of colleagues</a> approached the question differently. Rather than having students read and take a test, we asked how they perceived their overall learning when they used print or digital reading materials. Both high school and college students overwhelmingly judged reading on paper as better for concentration, learning and remembering than reading digitally.</p>
<p>The discrepancies between print and digital results are partly related to paper’s physical properties. With paper, there is a literal laying on of hands, along with the visual geography of distinct pages. People often <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/words-onscreen-9780199315765?cc=us&lang=en&">link their memory</a> of what they’ve read to how far into the book it was or where it was on the page. </p>
<p>But equally important is mental perspective, and what <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2018.09.003">reading researchers</a> call a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.02.043">shallowing hypothesis</a>.” According to this theory, people approach digital texts with a mindset suited to casual social media, and devote less mental effort than when they are reading print.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397144/original/file-20210426-15-1a4fs1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Students work on laptops in high school library" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397144/original/file-20210426-15-1a4fs1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397144/original/file-20210426-15-1a4fs1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397144/original/file-20210426-15-1a4fs1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397144/original/file-20210426-15-1a4fs1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397144/original/file-20210426-15-1a4fs1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397144/original/file-20210426-15-1a4fs1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397144/original/file-20210426-15-1a4fs1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Students are more prone to multitasking and distraction when studying on screens.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/students-in-the-library-at-burlington-high-schools-new-news-photo/1231790889">Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Podcasts and online video</h2>
<p>Given increased use of <a href="https://www.schoology.com/blog/flipped-classroom">flipped classrooms</a> – where students listen to or view lecture content before coming to class – along with more publicly available podcasts and online video content, many school assignments that previously entailed reading have been replaced with listening or viewing. These substitutions have <a href="https://www.bayviewanalytics.com/reports/digitaltextsinthetimeofcovid.pdf">accelerated</a> during the pandemic and move to virtual learning. </p>
<p>Surveying U.S. and Norwegian university faculty in 2019, University of Stavanger Professor Anne Mangen and I found that <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-we-read-now-9780190084097?cc=us&lang=en&">32% of U.S. faculty</a> were now replacing texts with video materials, and 15% reported doing so with audio. The numbers were somewhat lower in Norway. But in both countries, 40% of respondents who had changed their course requirements over the past five to 10 years reported assigning less reading today.</p>
<p>A primary reason for the shift to audio and video is students refusing to do assigned reading. While the problem is <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-07173-017">hardly new</a>, a <a href="https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/24302">2015 study</a> of more than 18,000 college seniors found only 21% usually completed all their assigned course reading.</p>
<p>Audio and video can feel more engaging than text, and so faculty increasingly resort to these technologies – say, assigning a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKK7wGAYP6k">TED talk</a> instead of an <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-language-shapes-thought/">article</a> by the same person.</p>
<h2>Maximizing mental focus</h2>
<p>Psychologists have demonstrated that when adults <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.1989.9917764">read news stories</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.2001.89.3.483">transcripts of fiction</a>, they remember more of the content than if they listen to identical pieces. </p>
<p>Researchers found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00986283.2010.488542">similar results with university students</a> reading an article versus listening to a podcast of the text. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00892">related study</a> confirms that students do more mind-wandering when listening to audio than when reading.</p>
<p>Results with younger students are similar, but with a twist. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02702710590910584">study in Cyprus</a> concluded that the relationship between listening and reading skills flips as children become more fluent readers. While second graders had better comprehension with listening, eighth graders showed better comprehension when reading.</p>
<p>Research on learning from video versus text echoes what we see with audio. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103796">researchers in Spain</a> found that fourth through sixth graders who read texts showed far more mental integration of the material than those watching videos. The authors suspect that students “read” the videos more superficially because they associate video with entertainment, not learning.</p>
<p>The collective research shows that digital media have common features and user practices that can constrain learning. These include diminished concentration, an entertainment mindset, a propensity to multitask, lack of a fixed physical reference point, reduced use of annotation and less frequent reviewing of what has been read, heard or viewed.</p>
<p>Digital texts, audio and video all have educational roles, especially when providing resources not available in print. However, for maximizing learning where mental focus and reflection are called for, educators – and parents – shouldn’t assume all media are the same, even when they contain identical words.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159522/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi S. Baron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People tend to think of digital media as entertainment, so they devote less mental effort than when they’re reading a printed book.Naomi S. Baron, Professor Emerita of Linguistics, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1241182019-09-25T14:10:34Z2019-09-25T14:10:34ZTeletext was slow but it paved the way for the super-fast world of the internet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294067/original/file-20190925-51401-sivjcn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A CEEFAX page from 1979.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/grim_fandango/status/1123663129022554112/photo/1">The Teletext Archaeologist - @grim_fandango</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The BBC has announced that 2020 will mark <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49715314">the end of the Red Button text service</a> – the final incarnation of what was originally known as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01k3l1q">CEEFAX</a> and Oracle. Those old text-based TV services would seem ridiculously clunky and old-fashioned to an internet generation used to instant streaming and apps for everything. But – as slow and frustrating as that old text system was – it paved the way for the World Wide Web and helped prepare us for the world of social media.</p>
<p>To most of us, the end of the red button shouldn’t be a huge surprise – not many people can remember the last time they pulled up a Red Button text page. Nowadays, like most people, I use my smart phone for pretty much everything. The Red Button service (and its predecessors CEEFAX/Teletext) take us back to a strange and foreign country: The Place Before Internet.</p>
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<p>CEEFAX was the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/september/ceefax">world’s first text information service</a> which started in 1974. It was joined by Independent Television’s Oracle (later renamed Teletext) in the early 1980s. Both services depended on a quirk of the old analogue TV signal. For reasons to do with the hardware (big glass cathode ray tubes and heavy electromagnets) there had to be a couple of milliseconds of pause between each frame of the moving image – and that pause was when the CEEFAX pages were transmitted. </p>
<h2>Like waiting for sushi</h2>
<p>When you fetch a web page, your browser sends a request to the server and the server sends the requested data back to you. CEEFAX, on the other hand, sent each page in turn, on a sort of endless loop. So you would put in the page number you wanted to see using your remote control, but it could take some time before that page came around again. It was a bit like waiting for your favourite sushi dish at one of those Japanese restaurants which use a conveyor belt to deliver the food, or your suitcase at an airport baggage claim.</p>
<p>Just 200 pages of information (made up of 25 lines with only 40 characters on each line) may seem hopelessly primitive these days when you can stream box sets to your mobile. But in 1974 if you wanted to know the headlines you had to wait for the next news bulletin. If you wanted to know the football scores, you had to go to the newsagents and buy a newspaper and if you wanted to know what time to catch the train to London you had to go to the station and pick up a printed timetable. With the arrival of CEEFAX, people could look up any of these things in a few minutes on their TVs using their remote control – and remote controls were pretty cutting-edge in the 70s too.</p>
<p>CEEFAX finally gasped its last breath <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20032882">in 2012</a> with the digital switch-over. The information, however, lived on within the Red Button. But now it was digital you could go directly to the page you wanted (no more sushi conveyor belt).
This is despite the fact that the internet increasingly became the first place anyone would look if they wanted information on anything from holidays, to voting on their favourite TV reality show.</p>
<p>Originally, CEEFAX and Oracle/Teletext were intended to supply mundane so-called “medium-latency information” (things that couldn’t wait for next morning’s papers) but which were not so time-sensitive – things that you had to know the exact second it happened. So information like the weather forecast fit the bill perfectly.</p>
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<h2>Budget holidays</h2>
<p>Soon, ways were found to turn a profit from it. CEEFAX was a BBC product, so it always kept to the public service model. But Teletext was commercial from the start and, in the mid 1990s, it found its killer application – cheap flights and holidays.</p>
<p>In 1996 Teletext branched out from news and sport to include listings of last-minute <a href="http://teletextart.co.uk/new-collection-teletext-palm-trees">flight offers and holidays</a>. These proved so popular, especially with small travel agents, that as the web began to appear they migrated the service on to a website – which still exists today, as <a href="https://www.teletextholidays.co.uk/">an ordinary holiday search site</a> – despite the Teletext service it sprang from having died with the end of analogue broadcasting. </p>
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<p>It was a similar story with the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18610692">French Minitel system</a>. In the late 1970s PTT, the French telephone service, wanted to save money in printing and distributing telephone directories, and also wanted to encourage the use of the telephone network overall. Their solution was to provide every PTT subscriber with a free Minitel terminal, and put all the phone numbers on their system.</p>
<p>There were stories of unwilling subscribers just leaving their Minitel unused, but the fact that essentially every French home had a terminal gave them instant market penetration, and various commercial services running on the service sprang up in a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18610692">small, francophone version of the dotcom bubble</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294107/original/file-20190925-51452-1mgwvkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294107/original/file-20190925-51452-1mgwvkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294107/original/file-20190925-51452-1mgwvkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294107/original/file-20190925-51452-1mgwvkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294107/original/file-20190925-51452-1mgwvkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294107/original/file-20190925-51452-1mgwvkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294107/original/file-20190925-51452-1mgwvkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the French Minitel machines from the early 1980s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minitel1.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the government were most keen to emphasise “online” shopping, travel purchases and similar services, what became known as the “Messageries roses” services proved unexpectedly popular (“pink messages” were a euphemism for adult chat services).</p>
<p>This was all taking place before anyone outside of a university science lab in the rest of the world had any kind of online connection. I remember seeing lurid adverts for Minitel adult services on the Paris Metro in the early 1990s. As late as 1998 Minitel was generating more than €80m and despite the development of the internet the service was not finally closed down until <a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2011/07/21/97001-20110721FILWWW00446-le-minitel-disparaitra-en-juin-2012.php">June 2012</a>.</p>
<p>Today, it is estimated the revenue made from apps and text services linked to television shows is <a href="https://psauthority.org.uk/-/media/Files/PSA/00NEW-website/Research-and-consultations/Research/_PSA_Annual_market_review_2018_2019.pdf?la=en&hash=9BEF5B2FA67D5F46EA0939C387A31C67C1076694">more than £100m</a>, though they were <a href="https://psauthority.org.uk/%7E/media/Files/PhonepayPlus/News-Items/2015July/2014-Annual-Market-Review.pdf">already £57m in 2014</a> – the year ITV made voting on X-Factor free.</p>
<p>But it was CEEFAX and Teletext that ushered in the world of the web we all now take for granted. It gave us the first taste of an array of commercial possibilities available to us even as we sat on our sofas. It may have taken a bit longer to get to that page of interest, but waiting to press the “hold” button just in time was just another part of its analogue charm.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Holyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The death of the BBC Red Button teletext service marks the end of an analogue era.Andy Holyer, Teaching Fellow at the School of Creative Technologies, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/906132018-02-07T11:29:11Z2018-02-07T11:29:11ZEstate planning for your digital assets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204891/original/file-20180205-14064-18d6b5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Digital documents are not nearly as easy to retrieve.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-searching-documents-archive-737512603">Africa Studio/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What will happen to your Facebook account when you die? What about all your photos shared on social media, your texts with loved ones, or documents on cloud-storage systems? In just the two-year period from 2012 to 2014, humans <a href="https://harvardmagazine.com/2014/03/why-big-data-is-a-big-deal">produced more data than in all of human civilization</a> before that – and the pace is only accelerating.</p>
<p>It’s not clear what people’s digital presences will look like in years to come, but it’s sure that an increasing number of people will be creating and accumulating growing reams of data until the day they die. But then what?</p>
<p>The law is very clear about handling paper documents and other physical property when someone dies. But as a law professor at Drake Law School who has been studying property transfers for years, I’ve seen that laws, regulations and court rulings are only recently trying to figure out how to handle <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2561871">the ever-changing realm of digital technology</a>. So far, in most cases the information is controlled by the companies that store it – regardless of what users want or direct to happen after their death.</p>
<h2>Law catching up with technology</h2>
<p>Many people have had email and other digital accounts for decades, some stretching back to the early pioneers in the 1960s. But large numbers of average people really only began creating significant digital footprints in the early part of the 21st century. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/25/media.newmedia">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://time.com/43263/gmail-10th-anniversary/">Gmail</a> began operations in 2004; <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/pressatgoogle.com/youtube5year/home/short-story-of-youtube">YouTube started in 2005</a>; <a href="https://thenextweb.com/twitter/2011/07/15/5-years-ago-today-twitter-launched-to-the-public/">Twitter launched in 2006</a>; the <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-the-real-innovation-behind-the-iphone-79556">iPhone came out in 2007</a>.</p>
<p>Almost a decade later, a group of lawyers from around the country <a href="http://www.uniformlaws.org/Act.aspx?title=Fiduciary%20Access%20to%20Digital%20Assets%20Act,%20Revised%20(2015)">developed a draft uniform law</a> they encouraged all 50 states to adopt, which would allow people to specify in their wills that the executor of their estate can access their email and social media profiles. So far, 39 state legislatures have adopted it and seven more are considering it this year.</p>
<p>The uniform law doesn’t specify – and courts have not yet been asked to rule on – exactly how that access should happen. So for the moment, a dead person’s executor must contact the company behind each digital platform to determine how to get into the person’s accounts.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.uniformlaws.org/LegislativeMap.aspx?title=Fiduciary%20Access%20to%20Digital%20Assets%20Act,%20Revised%20(2015)">states that haven’t passed this law</a>, companies themselves can decide whether to allow loved ones access to a late relative’s digital assets. <a href="https://policies.yahoo.com/us/en/yahoo/terms/utos/index.htm">Yahoo</a>, for example, is notorious for terminating an account upon a user’s death and forbidding access afterward. </p>
<p>The company’s refusal to grant access to surviving family members is being challenged in Massachusetts, a state that has not adopted the uniform digital assets law. In October 2017, the <a href="https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2017/10/16/12237.pdf">Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court</a> ruled that an executor could consent to the disclosure of emails on behalf of the dead person whose estate was being managed. The case is back before a lower court to decide on other issues, including whether the estate will be able to access the account despite <a href="https://policies.yahoo.com/us/en/yahoo/terms/utos/">Yahoo’s terms of service agreement</a>.</p>
<h2>The role of privacy</h2>
<p>With so many legal issues yet to be decided, people should be sure they include digital assets in their estate planning and encourage their loved ones to do the same. </p>
<p>Access to the email of a person who has died may be the most important to unlock: Messages and images are likely to be emotionally important. In addition, banking, utilities and other accounts are often linked to an email address; gaining online access to those can help administer a person’s estate.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s important to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2798812">protect the privacy of a person who has died</a> – despite the general legal assumption that a dead person no longer has privacy that needs protecting. The uniform state law does this by requiring a person to have left specific written permission for an executor to access an email account.</p>
<h2>Making plans for yourself</h2>
<p>To prepare yourself for a digital afterlife, the first task is to state, in writing, what you want to happen to your digital assets. Create a list of the accounts in your name, and determine which ones you want your executor to access – and which should be deleted. </p>
<p>Crucially, do not list usernames or passwords in your will, because a person’s will becomes a public document upon their death. Instead, consider recording access information for these accounts in a safe place – like <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-choose-terrible-passwords-and-how-to-fix-them-76619">password management software</a> – and leave instructions for your executor to find them.</p>
<p>It’s not yet clear whether credits and purchases with digital media accounts (like the Google Play Store or iTunes) or online reward account points can be transferred when their holder dies. The only solution for now may be to leave your executor with instructions on how to access the value stored in those accounts – and back up the media on external hard drives stored in a safe place.</p>
<p>Finally, check with the companies whose online services you use to see if they provide their own method to transfer assets at death. For example, <a href="https://myaccount.google.com/inactive?pli=1">Google has pioneered a method</a> for its users to indicate what they want to have happen to their account if they don’t access it for several months.</p>
<p>By engaging in some simple estate planning, you can protect your privacy as well as ease the management of your estate after your death. Plan for your digital assets in the same way you would any other valuable tangible or intangible asset. After all, digital assets are today’s shoeboxes of photos, letters and other mementos. Planning can preserve your legacy in its digital form.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Banta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What happens to your Facebook account, your iTunes purchases and your email messages when you die?Natalie Banta, Associate Professor of Law, Drake UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/667172016-11-01T01:01:53Z2016-11-01T01:01:53ZThe myth of the disappearing book<p>After years of sales growth, major publishers reported a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/03/ebook-sales-falling-for-the-first-time-finds-new-report">fall</a> in their e-book sales for the first time this year, introducing new doubts about the potential of e-books in the publishing industry. A Penguin executive even admitted recently that the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/14/penguin-boss-admits-the-company-read-too-much-into-the-ebook-hyp/">e-books hype</a> may have driven unwise investment, with the company losing too much confidence in “the power of the word on the page.” </p>
<p>Yet despite the increasing realization that digital and print can easily coexist in the market, the question of whether the e-book will “kill” the print book continues to surface. It doesn’t matter if the intention is to <a href="http://www.thecraftywriter.com/2012/09/21/the-energy-crisis-the-e-book-revolution-and-the-publishing-industry-will-print-books-survive/">predict</a> or <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2015/02/12/e-books-arent-killing-print/#4602b47a52b8">dismiss</a> this possibility; the potential disappearance of the book does not cease to stimulate our imagination.</p>
<p>Why is this idea so powerful? Why do we continue to question the encounter between e-books and print books in terms of a struggle, even if all evidence points to their peaceful coexistence? </p>
<p>The answers to these questions go beyond e-books and tell us much more about the mixture of excitement and fear we feel about innovation and change.
<a href="http://nms.sagepub.com/content/18/10/2379">In our research</a>, we discuss how the idea of one medium “killing” another has often followed the unveiling of new technologies.</p>
<h2>It’s all happened before</h2>
<p>Even before the advent of digital technologies, critics have predicted the demise of existing media. After television was invented, many claimed radio would die. But radio ended up surviving by finding new uses; people started listening in cars, during train rides and on factory floors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A family huddles around the television in the late 1950s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Family_watching_television_1958.jpg#/media/File:Family_watching_television_1958.jpg">National Archives and Records Administration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The myth of the disappearing book isn’t new, either. As early as 1894, <a href="https://archive.org/details/TheEndOfBooks">there was speculation</a> that the introduction of the phonograph would spell the demise of the books: They’d be replaced by what we today call audiobooks.</p>
<p>This happened again and again. <a href="http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/murphy.html">Movies, radio, television</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-end.html">hyperlinks</a> and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3192634/Mobile-geddon-cash-cameras-smartphones-killing-day-essentials.html">smartphones</a> – all conspired to destroy print books as a source of culture and entertainment. Some claimed the end of books would result in cultural <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/gutenberg-elegies-the-fate-of-reading-in-an-electronic-age/oclc/31014790">regression and decline</a>. Others envisioned utopian <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/06/physical-book-dead/">digital futures</a>, overstating the advantages of e-books.</p>
<p>It is not by chance that the idea of the death of the book surfaces in moments of technological change. This narrative, in fact, perfectly conveys the mixture of hopes and fears that characterize our deepest reactions to technological change. </p>
<h2>Narratives of technological change</h2>
<p>To understand why these reactions are so common, one has to consider that we create emotional bonds with media as they become an integral part of our life. <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo3618528.html">Numerous studies have shown</a> how people develop a close relationship with objects such as books, televisions and computers. Sometimes, we even humanize them, giving a name to our car or shouting at our laptop for not working properly. As a result, the emergence of a new technology – like e-readers – doesn’t just indicate economic and social change. It also causes us to adjust our relationship with something that has become an integral part of our day-to-day life.</p>
<p>As a result, we find ourselves longing for what we used to know, but no longer have. And it’s why <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-digital-technology-spawned-retros-revival-54302">entire industries develop around retro products and older technologies</a>. The spread of the printing press in 15th-century Europe, for example, made people seek out original manuscripts. The shift from silent to sound movie in the 1920s stimulated nostalgia for the older form. The same happened in the shift from analog to digital photography, from vinyls to CDs, or from black-and-white to color television. Not surprisingly, e-readers stimulated a new appreciation for the material quality of “old” books – and even for their <a href="http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/03/07/smelling-the-books">often unpleasant smell</a>.</p>
<p>The ones who still worry for the disappearance of print books may rest assured: Books have endured many technical revolutions, and are in the best position to survive this one. </p>
<p>Yet the myth of the disappearing medium will continue to provide an appealing narrative about both the transformative power of technology and our aversion to change. In fact, one of the strategies we employ in order to make sense of change is the use of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/comt.12099/abstract">narrative patterns</a> that are available and familiar, such as narratives of death and ending. Easy to remember and to spread, the story of the death of media reflects our excitement for the future, as well as our fear of losing parts of our intimate world – and finally, of ourselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>E-book sales are falling, even though many said they would “kill” print books. Computers and television were also supposed to spell the book’s demise. At one point, people even feared the phonograph.Simone Natale, Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies, Loughborough UniversityAndrea Ballatore, Lecturer, Birkbeck, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/619552016-07-26T04:50:49Z2016-07-26T04:50:49ZTechnology changes how authors write, but the big impact isn’t on their style<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131839/original/image-20160725-26512-1d2wx0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C161%2C1329%2C1153&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, similar to the one Nietzsche used.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Malling_Hansen,1867,_Dänemark.jpg">Peter Mitterhofer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Our writing instruments are also working on our thoughts.” Nietzsche wrote, or more precisely <em>typed</em>, this sentence on a Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, a wondrous strange contraption that looks a little like a koosh ball cast in brass and studded with typewriter keys. Depressing a key plunged a lever with the typeface downward onto the paper clutched in the underbelly. </p>
<p>It’s well-known that Nietzsche acquired the Writing Ball to compensate for his failing eyesight. Working by touch, he used it to compose terse, aphoristic phrasings exactly like that oft-quoted pronouncement. Our writing instruments, he suggested, are not just conveniences or contrivances for the expression of ideas; they actively shape the limits and expanse of what we have to say. Not only do we write differently with a fountain pen than with a crayon because they each feel different in our hands, we write (and think) different kinds of things. </p>
<p>But what can writing tools and writing machines really tell us about writing? Having just published my book <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674417076">“Track Changes”</a> on the literary history of word processing, I found such questions were much on my mind. Every interviewer <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/how-to-write-a-history-of-writing-software/489173/#article-comments">I spoke with</a> wanted to know how computers had changed literary style. Sometimes they meant style for an individual author; sometimes they seemed to want me to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/30/track-changes-a-literary-history-of-word-processing-matthew-kirschenbaum-review">pronounce upon the literary establishment</a> (whatever that is) in its entirety. </p>
<p>Style is at once something tangible – built up out of individual words and phrasings, with the academic specialization of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylometry">stylometry</a> devoted to its study – and elusive, associated with a writer’s “voice” or the unique “feel” of their prose. Doubtless this is why it fascinates us, and why we’re so concerned to know what computers are doing to it. And yet I think the question is misplaced.</p>
<h2>Word processing did change the game</h2>
<p>We know a lot of things about how computers changed the nature of literary writing: revision, obviously, became easier, and in fact the distinction between revision and composition began to erode entirely. (There are now <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/freewrite/481566/">dedicated writing devices</a> that force you to power through a draft without stopping to revise.) </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131832/original/image-20160725-31171-1y3le41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131832/original/image-20160725-31171-1y3le41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131832/original/image-20160725-31171-1y3le41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131832/original/image-20160725-31171-1y3le41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131832/original/image-20160725-31171-1y3le41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131832/original/image-20160725-31171-1y3le41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131832/original/image-20160725-31171-1y3le41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WordStar, shown here running on a Kaypro IV, was the word processor of choice for a number of early adopters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Kirschenbaum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also know that word processors found their way into plots and settings, as typewriters had in novels like William S. Burroughs’ <a href="http://www.groveatlantic.com/#page=isbn9780802122070%20">“Naked Lunch”</a> or Stephen King’s <a href="http://books.simonandschuster.com/Misery/Stephen-King/9781501143106">“Misery.”</a> </p>
<p>And we know that the circumstances of literary production changed: In 1983, as I detailed in my book, John Updike used his typewriter to fire off a note dismissing his secretary because he had just gotten a word processor. A year later Primo Levi wrote to an English friend that he was “<a href="https://joemoran.net/2016/05/07/primo-levi-mac-bore/">in danger of becoming a Mac bore</a>.” When she wrote back that it was merely a “clever new typewriter,” he replied: “It’s a lot more than that! It’s a memory prosthesis, an archive, an unprotesting secretary, a new game each day, as well as a designer, as you will see from the enclosed centipede picture.”</p>
<p>But none of these are really observations about style. </p>
<p>Style is the sum of many different influences – the instrument the author is writing with, to be sure, but also market trends and editorial dictates, what an author is reading that week, his or her emotional state and much else besides. (Nietzsche himself had chosen the word <em>“Gedanke”</em> in his original German – “thoughts” – not anything so particular as style.)</p>
<p>Recently, in fact, two researchers tried to determine whether literary style could be measured based on <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/03/mfa-creative-writing/462483/">whether or not writers had been through an MFA program</a>, another deterministic variable seemingly easy enough to isolate. They failed.</p>
<h2>Rather than style, the sense of the text</h2>
<p>Sitting at a typewriter, we are always in the present moment as the carriage trundles forward character by character, line by line. Word processing, by contrast, allowed writers to grasp a manuscript as a whole, a gestalt. The entire manuscript was instantly available via search functions. Whole passages could be moved at will, and chapters or sections reordered. The textual field became fluid and malleable, a potentially infinite expanse, or at least limited only by the computer’s ever-expanding memory. </p>
<p>The result was a new kind of control over writing space, a sentiment shared by early adopters of the technology otherwise as different from one another as National Book Award winner <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/02/arts/stanley-elkin-65-writer-of-stylish-fiction.html">Stanley Elkin</a> and queen of the vampires <a href="http://annerice.com">Anne Rice</a>. “Once you really get used to a computer and you get used to entering the information from that keyboard, things happen in your mind, I mean, you change as a writer. You’re able to do things that maybe you never would have thought of doing before,” <a href="http://www.wiredforbooks.org/annerice/">concluded Rice</a>. Elkin extolled his renewed appreciation for plot after acquiring a word processor in 1979: “Plots have become very interesting to me,” he <a href="http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/a-conversation-with-stanley-elkin-by-peter-j-bailey/">told an interviewer</a> at the time. “You put the machine into the search mode, and you find what the reference was earlier, and you can begin to use these things as tools, or nails, in putting the plot together.”</p>
<p>What Elkin and Rice are describing, each in their own way, is what composition theorists like Christina Haas have called the “<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1775762.Writing_Technology">sense of the text</a>.” It means the mental model of the words on the page (or screen) and how the writer perceives his or her relationship to them. Word processing, as the testimony of countless writers suggests, profoundly altered their sense of the text, both in terms of how they approached their writing and what they thought possible. But all of that is a far cry from “style,” typically defined as an author’s individual word choices and sentence structures or arrangements.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129077/original/image-20160702-18294-jrp58l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129077/original/image-20160702-18294-jrp58l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129077/original/image-20160702-18294-jrp58l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129077/original/image-20160702-18294-jrp58l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129077/original/image-20160702-18294-jrp58l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129077/original/image-20160702-18294-jrp58l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129077/original/image-20160702-18294-jrp58l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129077/original/image-20160702-18294-jrp58l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This illustration from an early word processing manual sought to reassure anxious authors that their prose was still there, even after it had scrolled off the edge of the screen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PerfectWriter manual</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Running word-processed prose through a computer</h2>
<p>Which is not to say that kind of analysis couldn’t be done. In fact, specialists have been doing it for decades. You would begin by choosing a writer like Isaac Asimov, someone who wrote a lot and for whom we happen to know the exact day on which he acquired his first computer: a TRS-80 Model II on May 6, 1981. You would want a digitized corpus of his books from before and after, and then you would see what you could find with your algorithms. </p>
<p>Even then, though, the question would nag: What would those algorithms tell you? They might reveal some heretofore unimagined master key to Asimov’s oeuvre. But you might also be left with something like stylometrist Louis Milic’s contention about <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jonathan-Swift">Jonathan Swift</a>, famously <a href="http://stephenramsay.us/text/2012/11/08/stanley-and-me/">demolished by literary theorist Stanley Fish</a>: “The low frequency of initial determiners, taken together with the high frequency of initial connectives, makes [Swift] a writer who likes transitions and made much of connectives.” </p>
<p>As it happens, a couple of researchers a few years back <a href="http://stunlaw.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-author-signal-nietzsches-typewriter.html">performed exactly this exercise with Nietzsche</a>; tantalizingly, they were apparently able to distinguish between his earlier and later style, pivoting around the onset of his blindness and the acquisition of the Writing Ball. Their results were based on word frequencies, an analysis of which showed the philosopher’s writings to cluster into different groupings based on dates in which the texts were composed.</p>
<p>And yet, a table of word frequencies has nothing to do with sentence length, which was the impetus for the philosopher’s own comment in the first place. Nietzsche, after all, was remarking on the way in which the Malling-Hansen lent itself to brief bursts of text (not unlike tweets) – not the evolution of his personal vocabulary. And we also know that the Writing Ball was only one of several workarounds Nietzsche was eventually forced to adopt – he also dictated prose aloud to secretaries, for example.</p>
<p><a href="http://english.yale.edu/people/adjunct-professors-and-senior-lecturers-creative-writers/anne-fadiman">Anne Fadiman</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Bc9LpS6o6VwC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=anne+fadiman+word+processing+spoor&source=bl&ots=Lqun7XhG-d&sig=63c703RwgeOD3ixCnaOg3Rzfv08&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL_8720NfNAhXM7CYKHSuLAF0Q6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=anne%20fadiman%20word%20processing%20spoor&f=false">once claimed</a> she could detect the “spoor” of word processing in other writers’ prose. Using computers to sniff out other computers may yet tell us fascinating things about the delicate membrane between thoughts and the written word. Indeed, it may be that the best way to measure the technology’s impact on literary style is in aggregate, through big data approaches: assembling dozens or hundreds of authors’ bodies of work. It would be fascinating to know, for example, whether the dictates of the grammar checkers built into modern word processors have had a measurable impact on literary prose.</p>
<p>But we’ll still be left with all the imponderables of hands on keyboards. Writing machines may be complicated, but writing itself is always infinitely more so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Kirschenbaum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The writing process is different whether your instrument is a fountain pen, a crayon, a typewriter or a computer. What fingerprints does the technology leave on the product?Matthew Kirschenbaum, Professor of English, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/574732016-05-05T10:09:23Z2016-05-05T10:09:23ZReading to your child: the difference it makes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121218/original/image-20160504-9426-dglee4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">California elementary school teacher doing shared reading.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kathleen Tomscha</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you are a parent or a teacher, you most probably read stories to young children. Together, you laugh and point at the pictures. You engage them with a few simple questions. And they respond. </p>
<p>So what happens to children when they participate in shared reading? Does it make a difference to their learning? If so, what aspects of their learning are affected?</p>
<h2>Shared reading for language development</h2>
<p>British researcher <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ275418">Don Holdaway</a> was the first to point out the benefits of shared reading. He noted that children found these moments to be some of their happiest. He also found that children <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED351662">developed positive and strong associations</a> with spoken language and the physical book itself, during these moments.</p>
<p>Since then a <a href="https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/1484/168_150.pdf;jsessionid=90CB938B420BA1F09D404FA992E2631C?sequence=1">number of studies</a> <a href="http://products.brookespublishing.com/Beginning-Literacy-with-Language-P20.aspx">have been conducted</a> showing the value of shared reading in children’s language development, especially in vocabulary and concept development.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.naeyc.org/content/conversation-vivian-gussin-paley">Early childhood researcher Vivian Paley</a>, for example, during her work in the <a href="http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu">University of Chicago Laboratory Schools</a>, found that <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3617303.html">kindergarten children</a> learned when a story was dramatized in shared reading. Not only did children develop oral language, they imaginatively learned the conventions of a story, such as character, plot and themes. In shared storytelling, children also learned how to use language in multiple ways. </p>
<p>Other research found that shared reading was related to the <a href="http://www.ttrb3.org.uk/parental-involvement-in-the-development-of-childrens-reading-skill-a-five-year-longitudinal-study/">development of expressive vocabulary.</a> That is, children developed listening skills and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/10409280701838710">built an understanding</a> of grammar as well as vocabulary in the context of the story.</p>
<h2>Connecting words to emotions</h2>
<p>As a language and literacy researcher, I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/JAAL.149">work with teachers</a> to develop reading strategies that develop children’s interest in reading and help them think critically. <a href="http://www.utc.edu/school-education/profiles/hbp563.php">Kay Cowan</a>, an early childhood researcher who studies the role of the arts in language learning, and I conducted two studies to understand children’s language development in grades one to five. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121226/original/image-20160504-5832-g93t0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121226/original/image-20160504-5832-g93t0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121226/original/image-20160504-5832-g93t0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121226/original/image-20160504-5832-g93t0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121226/original/image-20160504-5832-g93t0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121226/original/image-20160504-5832-g93t0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121226/original/image-20160504-5832-g93t0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Grade 5 child generates vocabulary through shared reading.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kay Cowan</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>We worked with approximately 75 children across grade levels. We began our language study by talking with the students about the power of words, and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1598/RT.60.2.3">role they play</a> in and outside of school. Following this, we discussed the <a href="http://literacyworks.wikispaces.com/file/view/MediatingtheMatthewEffect.pdf">pleasures associated with words</a>. We then read “Shadow,” an award-winning picture book by children’s author Marcia Brown, and poems by <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/shel-silverstein">Shel Silverstein</a>, another children’s author. </p>
<p>Children were then asked to think of an “absolutely wonderful” event that they had experienced, and associate an emotion with it. Children chose a personal event that elicited emotions. They then drew contrasting images of the word that showed opposite emotions, and studied synonyms and antonyms to understand the “shades of meaning.” They then wrote descriptive poetry to convey this emotion. </p>
<p>All children – even those who were at the risk of failing – used vivid language. Children described words like “ebullient” and “melancholy” in ways that related to their own emotion. </p>
<p>One child described her word “ebullient” as “bright,” and “merry,” and “never asking for anything.” “Ebullient” was also “warm,” and “gypsy-like,” and so on. Another described loneliness as “…making me feel cold/Like an icicle/wanting to melt away.” </p>
<p>Following this exercise, children noticed that their writing was much better. It showed us how wide and varied reading, repetition and varied encounters with words were extremely important for children to have a depth of understanding as well as verbal flexibility – being able to express the meaning of word in different ways. </p>
<h2>Why home matters</h2>
<p>The quality of exchanges between children and adults during shared reading is found to be critical to their language development. So, the role of home in shared reading is crucial.</p>
<p>Long-term studies by linguistic anthropologist <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/US/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/sociolinguistics/ways-words-language-life-and-work-communities-and-classrooms">Shirley Brice Heath</a> <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674645110">and other</a> <a href="http://www.heinemann.com/products/08211.aspx">literacy scholars</a> have documented children’s ability to read as related to their families’ beliefs about reading, the quality of conversation at home and access to print materials prior to their entry into school.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121228/original/image-20160504-9426-1wowdym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121228/original/image-20160504-9426-1wowdym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121228/original/image-20160504-9426-1wowdym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121228/original/image-20160504-9426-1wowdym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121228/original/image-20160504-9426-1wowdym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121228/original/image-20160504-9426-1wowdym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121228/original/image-20160504-9426-1wowdym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mother reads with children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Diana Ramsey</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>For 10 years, Heath studied two communities a few miles a part, one black working-class and one white working-class. She documented how family practices (e.g., oral storytelling, reading books, talk) influenced children’s language development at home and in school. For example, children read and talked about stories, were asked questions about the stories or told stories about their lives, events and situations in which they were involved. Parents engaged their children in these experiences to prepare them to do well in school. </p>
<p>Similarly, researcher <a href="http://faculty.educ.ubc.ca/vpurcell-gates/">Victoria Purcell-Gates</a> <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674645110">worked with an Appalachian family</a>, specifically mother Jenny and son Donny, to help them learn to read. With Jenny, they read and talked about picture books, listened to and read along with books on tape and wrote in a journal. With Donny, they shared reading, labeled pictures and wrote stories. Jenny was able to read picture books to her sons, while Donny learned to write letters to his dad in prison. </p>
<p>Other researchers have found that when parents, specifically mothers, knew how to interact with their children during shared reading using positive reinforcement and asking questions about the story, both children and mothers <a href="http://www.hfrp.org/family-involvement/publications-resources/the-effects-of-a-responsive-parenting-intervention-on-parent-child-interactions-during-shared-book-reading">benefited</a>.</p>
<p>Mothers learned how to ask open-ended questions, and prompted their children to respond to stories. Children were more engaged and enthusiastic about the shared reading experience. They also were able to talk more about the story’s content, and were able to talk about the relationship between pictures and story. </p>
<p>What’s more, shared story experiences have also been shown to have an influence on children’s <a href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ747871.pdf">understanding of math concepts</a> and <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ788400">geometry in kindergarten</a>. </p>
<p>Children more readily learn math concepts like numbers, size (bigger, smaller) and estimation/approximation (lots, many) when parents <a href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ747871.pdf">engaged in “math talk”</a> while reading picture books. </p>
<h2>Shared reading in a digital world</h2>
<p>While shared reading is often associated with print books, <a href="http://store.tcpress.com/0807752606.shtml">shared reading can be extended to digital texts</a> such as blogs, podcasts, text messages, video and other complex combinations of print, image, sound, animation and so on.</p>
<p>Good video games, for example, incorporate many <a href="http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/documents/Good_Learning.pdf">learning principles</a>, such as interaction, problem-solving and risk-taking, among others. As in shared reading, children interact with their parents, teachers or peers as they engage in stories. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121229/original/image-20160504-1305-yov334.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121229/original/image-20160504-1305-yov334.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121229/original/image-20160504-1305-yov334.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121229/original/image-20160504-1305-yov334.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121229/original/image-20160504-1305-yov334.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121229/original/image-20160504-1305-yov334.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121229/original/image-20160504-1305-yov334.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African children share reading on computer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amy Seely Flint</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.pdx.edu/directory/name/jason_ranker">Literacy researcher Jason Ranker’s</a> case study of eight-year-old Adrian shows that young children can <a href="https://www.learntechlib.org/p/65370/">actually “redesign”</a> how stories are read, discussed and told when they engage actively with video game narratives. </p>
<p>Adrian, who played a video game, Gauntlet Legends, created a story in Ranker’s class, to which he added many drawings to show the movement of characters. </p>
<p>In this case study, Ranker found that children like Adrian who play video games learn how to produce stories that do not follow the linear pattern found in print stories (exposition, climax, resolution). Rather, children experience stories at “levels” that allow characters and plots to move in many directions, eventually coming to resolution.</p>
<p>Similarly, children with access to <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/puppet-pals-hd/id342076546?mt=8">certain apps</a> are coordinating their storytelling on a touchscreen. They choose characters for their stories. They move them around with their fingers, and drag-and-drop them in and out of the story. If they want to create more complex stories, they work with others to coordinate characters’ movements. Sharing stories, then, becomes collaborative, imaginative and dynamic through these digital mediums.</p>
<p>Children, in essence, have redesigned how stories are told and experienced, demonstrating imagination, vision and problem-solving. </p>
<p>One thing that is clear across research is that rich complex language development does not happen merely by pointing at letters or pronouncing words out of context. It is engagement, and guided attention to language conventions, that matter in shared reading.</p>
<p>Ultimately, what is important is that shared reading must be a joyful experience for the child. Sharing stories must allow for a personal connection and allow for interaction and a shared learning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peggy Albers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When you read to children, they develop abilities to express emotions through language.Peggy Albers, Professor of Language and Literacy Education, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.