The Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus, Georgia has an interesting article:Techtots generation. It eplains how today’s children are expecting interactive components in their media as well as cross-platform experiences where their TV shows become portable to iPods and to computer games.
Now I am not saying that children need to spend more time watching TV or playing video games. But as librarians, how does this change in media perception by children affect how we are going to serve them? One aspect is to take advantage of what publishers are already doing with their books by creating online games and activities with their popular characters and series. Do our own websites need to have more interactive features? Definitely. We see that in our teen users already.
But let’s not forget why we are here. Books. And though books may not have the flashy graphics or moving pixels, they have something even better. They have imagination which can take a child much farther than any online game or digital TV experience. The power of imagination has to stay alive and well in our children or else what is childhood?