Social Media Bondage

"This decline in reading print media -- particularly the decline in reading books -- it's concerning."
"Reading long-form texts like books and magazine articles is really important for understanding complex ideas and for developing critical thinking skills. It's also excellent practice for students who are going on to college."
"Does digital media displace the leisure time people once spent on legacy media? We find that the answer is yes."
Jean Twenge, professor of psychology, San Diego State University

"This is not the way we treat things that we want to teach children are pleasurable. [by coercing children to read, by temporarily restricting their Internet time until a time-frame dedicated to reading has passed] I mean, think about it. You would never think of coercing your child into having a piece of cake."
"[Modelling good reading through example is fundamental]. That almost goes without saying. If you're nagging your child to read and you're just sort of on Instagram [yourself] all the time, why in the world would they take that seriously?"
Daniel Willingham, professor of psychology, University of Virginia

Image – iStockphoto: Disobey Art

Dr. Willingham wrote Raising Kids Who Read, and Dr. Twenge is the author of iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy -- and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood -- and What That Means for the Rest of Us, one title snappy and to the point, the other groaningly verbose for a title, but both indicating the concern that these two academics feel for the generations for whom reading is no longer a valued skill nor a source of limitless pleasure and entertainment.

According to research published by the American Psychological Association, adolescents in North America are twinned to their electronic devices; texting, scrolling and engaging in social media for hours on end daily, vastly preferring that medium to reading books and magazines, in print or long-form media. In 2016, one in three American high school seniors chose not to read a book at all for pleasure, while 82 percent of those in 12th grade daily succumbed to the social imperative of visiting Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

In contrast, back in the 1970s, about 60 percent of high school seniors read a book, magazine or newspaper each and every day; now, only 16 percent of high school seniors reported having done so. Early in the 1980s the slide in rates of reading legacy media began and steadily increased in the next several decades. And then along came smart-phones and high-speed Internet with widely available access, sweeping everyone along in the frenzy of being cool and connected.

Image – iStockphoto: Disobey Art

Screen time for high-schoolers -- including television -- rose steadily, tripling from the late 1970s to the mid-2010s, the study points out. And while 12th-grade students reported about six hours devoted every day to digital media, tenth-graders devoted five hours and eighth-graders four hours, amply demonstrating that given the choice, teens prefer to pick up their devices in favour of a book any day of the week, any hour, any time.

As in most things, a gender differential was noted, with girls visiting social media sites more frequently than boys, who preferred to spend more of their leisure time on video games, in a predictable twist. Dr. Willingham recommends parents focus on the need to separate their children from their screens, but without resorting to enforced reading; not to deprive the teen of his/her phone assuring a return in 30 minutes once that time has been gainfully spent reading.

To begin with, the environment in which children live should be one where books are a casual yet important part of what is on offer as an option, rather than banning devices. A good way to impress the importance of reading on teens is to ensure that they are familiar with books being the first choice of leisure-time reading for their parents; setting that vital example as a subconscious clue to values and choices.

"Litter your house with eye-catching titles", is the advice of Dean-Michael Crosby, teacher at a school in England, whose advice to parents is that leaving books in the living room, the kitchen, even bathrooms has the potential to provoke interest in young people, curious about their contents.

(iStock)

Tempest In A Sanctimonious Apple

"We have no tolerance or sympathy for terrorists. When they commit unspeakable acts like the tragic attacks in San Bernardino, we work to help the authorities pursue justice for the victims."
"Apple is a uniquely American company. It does not feel right to be on the opposite side of the government in a case centering on the freedoms and liberties that government is meant to protect." "[But] this case is about much more than a single phone or a single investigation, so when we received the government's order we knew we had to speak out."
Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc.

"We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist's passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly. That's it."
"We don't want to break anyone's encryption or set a master key loose on the land."
James Comey, director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington

"This is a specific case where the government is asking for access to information [Apple should assist the U.S. government's wish to hack into a locked iPhone, in the San Bernardino, California terrorist attack]."
Bill Games, former head, co-founder, Microsoft

A demonstrator outside the Apple store at the Grove shows a "digital sign" in support of Apple's resistance to help the FBI. 
(Sarah Parvini / Los Angeles Times)

He's out of the game that other vast conglomerates and their chief operating officers are still headily involved in, but his opinion still has a good measure of clout, if not now as a highly respected computer-giant-software entrepreneur, then as a philanthropic philosopher whose billions derived from the world-wide-web have been put to inestimable good use universally. So, while Apple, Facebook, Twitter and Google are all averse to ceding to a government request to enable them to investigate possible links to Islamist terrorism through their platforms, Bill Gates stands foursquare for co-operation in this instance.

Tim Cook may talk a good line about lack of sympathy for the jihadi agenda, but he sees greater facility of purpose in denying investigative intelligence authority the means by which they may use the advanced technology of the Apple iPhone as a conduit to that intelligence. For one thing, defiance of government is hugely popular, particularly in the field of perceived intrusions into privacy, and a corporation such as Apple balancing its reputation on integrity and loyalty to its client base through their guarantee of privacy fits the bottom line as a superior public relations strategy.

While stating on the one hand that "it does not feel right" (thus establishing their selective patriotism) to defy government through a specific request bolstered by a court order, it is to Apple's credit among its clients that it poses as a protector of their security issues in a world where intrusiveness has been the subject of a colossal backlash from people addicted to their interface with online services and Internet social platforms, where in fact, they don't one whit mind unleashing on the world all their private concerns and actions which portray them as the noble and high-minded citizens that they reveal themselves to be.

So, Tim Cook loftily proclaims his pride in his and his company's decision to never to risk the "security of hundreds of millions of law-abiding people", who happen to be their clients, just for the possible chance that in allowing the FBI to hack one device owned by one erstwhile American citizen whose dalliance with fanatical Islamism caused him to take the lives of an unfortunate number of his co-workers. If the FBI hope to be able to link others within the community where the atrocity took place, or further afield, to the crime to alert them to the possibility it might be repeated, they can bloody well use other means.

The plea by FBI director James Comey that Apple owes this concession to the victims of the San Bernardino assault has fallen on the unconvinced ears that have balanced all the pros and cons and found that plea wanting even if it means that the FBI "can't look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don't follow this lead". So the iPhone that was a technical companion in communication for Syed Farook who killed 14 innocent people for the crime of not being Muslim, will remain locked against the FBI enquiry.

In the balance between a federal magistrate judge ordering Apple to concede its assistance to the FBI to enable it entrance into the password-protected phone, an industry giant thumbs its metaphorical nose at government, its intelligence agency, and its judiciary. Apple as defiant of orders to cooperate is simply Apple doing 'the right thing' for its product-constituents who expect no less of it, for having selected Apple's products they have chosen the fail-safe technology of encryption, a lock that puzzles authorities and investigators and that's just the way it is.