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Comment by docfort | Hacker News Reader

I don't dispute the facts in the article, but this question kept popping up in my mind: how do they define reading time? I mean, in a too-pedantic sense, smartphone screen time is roughly divided into reading, viewing (photos/videos), and gaming. Given that they are not allowed to take the phones, it seems unlikely that the school knows a student's primary usage mode. For example, a student could be reading a bunch of fiction on their phone, thereby reducing their time in the school's library.

In other words, how holistic is the metric "reading time?"

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I'm a high school teacher. Not for long, but for a few years now.

Never have I ever seen a student reading on their phone. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it must be a vanishingly small fraction that I have not yet encountered. When my students are on their phones, it's games, or it's (primarily video-based) social media. A smaller but notable fraction is background media consumption, either music or movies.

That's not to say I don't have kids who read, though they're much rarer than the music listeners, just that the readers seem to prefer physical books.

So at least in my experience, I wouldn't expect that metric to be vulnerable to this particular flavor of distortion.

Thanks for the reality check. I was worried about how I could be conflating my own personal view as a parent with the popular narrative of "kids these days and their Instagram/TikTok." Probably says a lot more about me, but I vastly prefer the reading experience of a thick book on a phone than as a physical copy. And I have since I was a teenager (and it was just PDAs and clever TI-89 hackery).

I used to read on PDA and then later on Nokia Internet Tablet. But never in school even if I had one where. At those times it was just games(Bejewelled, Space Trader, DopeWars) or graphic calculator software.

> games(Bejewelled, Space Trader, DopeWars) or graphic calculator software

Snake!

Most people don’t have the patience and attention span to read thick books in the first place. That’s something that you have to develop with practice, and kids who have access to TikTok aren’t going to get that practice.

I read a lot on my phone as a student.

I know I’m an autist and Wikipedia addictions are not the norm, but how can people not enjoy reading?

I got in trouble all the time in school for reading (real books) during class time when the teacher was lecturing about things I already knew. Do kids like this not exist anymore? I thought autism rates were going up!

Seriously, no one reads? I thought kids were getting all political and woke, presumably from reading progressive things? I guess it’s all TikTok mind control?

I categorically oppose phone bans on the grounds that it harms the “brilliant lazy”, and that these forces are exactly the kind you want to cultivate. (insert the famous bill gates and 4 types of German officers quote about this here) - but if this class of people has evaporated from the school systems than who am I even defending?

I do have readers, they're just not as common as the types. And like you they prefer physical books.

I hear you, but not all “reading time” is equal.

> For example, a student could be reading a bunch of fiction on their phone, thereby reducing their time in the school's library.

That would be a great exception, but very much not the norm. Most kids are not reading long-form books or fiction on their phones.

Also, all reading time in the school library won’t be equal. If the school insists on only certain reading time being valid they ought to just force kids to read a specific set of books. (My personal preference would be for fundamentally less coercive education.)

Sure. But I can pretty much guarantee the likelihood of finding worthwhile reading material in the school library is significantly higher than the likelihood of finding it on TikTok or X.

    > a student could be reading a bunch of fiction on their phone

Parent here. They could be, but let's be realistic here: they're likely not or if they are, they are the minority.

My kids have dedicated reading time with physical books and, if they want to, they are always free to read more long form text on their devices (not likely -- that's just reality unless you have a dedicated reading-only device).

> smartphone screen time is roughly divided into reading, viewing (photos/videos), and gaming

My kids are avid readers, but even they won't read on a phone or a pad or a computer. If they got hold of a phone, they'd always choose either games or viewing videos.

Even if you were watching them, you don’t know that they don’t have an app that plays a game frame at 1 Hz that they sync their minds to while you see the other 59 frames at 60 Hz and think you’re seeing a book.

Without root access to the device and blinkers to ensure they aren’t looking at a second device strategically placed out of sight, you can’t conclude anything.

> a student could be reading a bunch of fiction on their phone

It's a nice thought, but I have kids that age and never have I once seen this happen or heard of it happening with any of their friends/classmates; that's not what phones are for according to GenZ/GenA

Man, I love reading, but I simply can't focus on reading a long book on my phone. There are too many distractions, too many urges that are way too easy to satisfy with all sorts of time wasters. So if I, as somebody who reads a lot of books and has been an avid reader since childhood, can't resist wasting time and focus on reading on my phone, then I can't imagine any significant number of kids would be able to.

According to everyone, I think. E-readers exist for that precise reason, although actual books are the best according to me: no battery, more resilient, can be lent. Phones are great as dictionaries (notably foreign language dictionaries).

I find most ereaders to be absolute garbage and just read books on my phone.

Personally speaking, myself and my friend group used our phones mostly for reading in high school in the mid-2010s. It's the exception but certainly not unheard of. Those interested in writing are likely to do a lot of reading, and there are many amateur writing communities online that are populated mostly by teenagers.

Doomscrolling is not reading. And is the one behaviour above literally any other thing that phones force you into. Their form factor and their apps have converged on the perfect device for "making you keep meaninglessly looking at the device" while reinforcing that behaviour.

I taught at the high school level for a decade. I would occasionally have students review their usage stats and 1) they were regularly a bit shocked by the number of hours they spend on their phones, and 2) the vast majority of that time was games and social media.

Phones make for poor reading devices. My girlfriend spends a lot of time reading light novels on her phone, and I don't understand how. The small format, constant scrolling, and the presence of ads on many apps and sites makes the experience look miserable. I don't know how many kids are using the paid versions of their reading apps, let alone reading long-form content at all.

There's been a few studies suggesting reading on paper is better for retention than reading on screens, and I've found one suggesting the size of the screen makes a further difference, but it looks like the latter may have some conflicting findings as well.

There’s a bit more than rough categories.

Phones and certain services like social are made to capture, retain and redirect your attention.

Students come more out of this tie of constructed consumption origin.

The default state is often not idle, boredom, it’s consumption.

Relative to that..

There’s productive time and non productive time.

Passive consumption va active learning or active creating.

It’s easy to see what services accessed at a network level per devices.

There’s also digital health built into android and iOS that tracks app usage by time.

Another option is apps like opal which help manage things.

Speaking for myself (a grown-up) I do read a lot on my phone, but it's almost all "brain junk food" like Hacker News comments :) instead of something which slowly develops a complex idea like a book.

Yeah, same issue here.

Even worse is the plague that are PDFs, for instance for science papers, the reading of which is a miserable experience due to too big fixed pages (lack of reflow).

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