[gumperbumper]

I’m not saying learning to read is like learning to speak. I’m saying that people have learned to read with far fewer resources than we have available today. If anything, we likely have _too_ many resources today. For instance, what is the impact of screen time on reading ability? That’s just one of many examples.

[sonzohan]

> It requires almost no resources to learn and do. Reading requires an enormous amount of resources to learn and do. While people before had far fewer resources than we do "today" (without discussing what the terms 'then' and 'now' mean, and what 'resources' mean), much of literacy education was parochial: the primary goal of literacy was to be able to read the bible.

As for the impact of screen time on reading ability, it's important to discuss what literacy means from an educational standpoint. Literacy is much more than "Can you read the words on the page, or speak them aloud"; modern literacy is broken into understanding prose, documentation, and quantitative analysis. This is why when the article says "US children are falling behind on reading" they mean "1/3 of Eighth graders could not make an inference on a character's motivation after reading a short story" and similarly did not know that 'industrious' means 'hard working'.

Since you've asked about screen time, it's not so driven by 'screen time' as it is by the activity performed with screen time. When you say screen time, are you referring to someone reading a book on a Kindle, or doomscrolling on the social media of their choice? Both have been very well studied, with a wealth of publications on their impact.

The tl;dr of the research: Both have words on the screen, yes, but one (reading on a Kindle) is shown to have positive effects on literacy while the other (consuming social media) is shown to have detrimental effects across the board (not just limited to decreased literacy performance). Notably (and a point discussing the 'resources' in terms of time and energy investment), parents co-viewing content with their child has been suggested to improve overall language abilities, children who are left to their own devices (pun intended) experience poorer vocabulary acquisition and retention. [1]

1. Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development: An Updated Review and Strategies for Management https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10353947/

* P.S. I read manga and play video games in Japanese to study and practice the language. It's been incredible for reading speed and basic comprehension, but I'm still years of daily effort away from reading legal documents.

[gumperbumper]

I’m not sure whether or not screen time can be beneficial is relevant to the question “is screen time impacting reading ability.” Most people probably don’t engage in enriching screen-based activities, so the main thing to consider is whether or not screens, as commonly used by the population at large, are having a negative impact.

Also, I’ll push back on the notion that people historically learned to read in order to read the Bible. Maybe 1000 years ago, but even in the beginning of the late Middle Ages people were reading vernacular in Europe. Hangul, created in 1443, was created specifically to increase literacy amongst the masses. And of course, the first written languages are thousands of years older than the Old Testament.