ebookporn

From the recent the study produced by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.

I don’t think there is really any surprise to this. Computers and software are at their very core productivity tools designed to automate and do work for you. Interactive books act as a surrogate for the parent. Reading a children’s ebook together with your child as a parent you want to be the one providing the interaction and not the tool.

Parents indicated they feel animations, games, and video in children’s ebooks are a distraction but other features like highlighted words and narration were viewed more favorably indicating they distrust enhancements that lead the child away from reading the actual story but like tools that helped the child read. 

Now, if rather than reading they wanted a tool to distract and entertain the child like on vacation or leaving the child alone with the device they viewed ebooks more favorably with ebooks winning out over printed books. Here those “entertainment” features may be a valuable feature for parents. 

~ eP