In the era of electronic media and artificial intelligence, where will the focus of children's reading shift?

With the development and popularization of electronic media and artificial intelligence, children's reading also needs to be re-examined in this perspective. In an era when electronic viewing has replaced book reading as the basic way to receive and transmit information, why should we advocate for reading? When artificial intelligence becomes a new starting point for human memory, calculation, imagination and creation, what role will children's reading play? Where will the focus of children's reading shift? Let's take a look at this article -

In the 21st century, with the development of the Internet and mobile Internet technology, traditional media, including books, have shrunk to varying degrees, while electronic media with a wide variety of forms and rich content have become popular; In the past two years, artificial intelligence technology has undergone a qualitative mutation, which has brought impact to all walks of life, including the creation, publication and reading of books. Electronic media and artificial intelligence, two technological changes in the field of digitalization, will definitely redefine our future, and will become an important variable and background for the development of various cultural undertakings of mankind for a long time.

Why do children still need to read in the age of electronic media?

At the beginning of the 21st century, when computers and mobile phones have just begun to be popularized, the field of children's reading at home and abroad has anxiously discussed the existing and possible impact of electronic media on children's reading. More than 20 years later, these emerging electronic media now fully cover and dominate people's daily lives. In a large number of public and private fields, electronic viewing has become the basic way for contemporary people to receive and transmit information. Compared with the printed media of the past, the basic requirements for literacy ability of electronic media that are oriented to the public and use images as the main symbol are extremely low, as long as they experience normal basic education and have basic literacy skills, they are sufficient to cope with the operational requirements of various electronic media products. This means that people may not need much reading to adapt to the demands of life in this new media age. At the same time, many of the leisure and entertainment needs of our daily lives seem to be endlessly satisfied by electronic media. If every day's work no longer needs the necessary support for reading, and every day's free time can be filled with video and video watching happily, why do we still need to read?

This is the background in which we cannot avoid children's reading today, and how to treat reading in the age of electronic media, we must have a rational, mature and non-blind attitude. The reason why we advocate the insistence on reading is not out of any stubborn conservative mentality and traditionalism, but because the act of reading and the culture it represents still have its irreplaceable significance and value in the age of electronic media. Only when we recognize the irreplaceable value of reading, when we talk to our children about the importance of reading and call for more reading in childhood, can the reality ground on which we stand on our own is solid enough.

In the context of the age of electronic media, reading is still irreplaceable because, first of all, is the peculiarity of the reading activity itself. In a 2008 article, Ursula Legun, author of The Wizard of the Earth, distinguished between a TV "audience" and a book "reader": at the push of a switch, the TV could continue to play, regardless of whether the audience understood, accepted, and to what extent; Reading, on the other hand, is an act that requires active intervention from the reader, which Le Guin calls "an activity that requires vigilance." "A book challenges in its silence: it can't seduce you with grand music, it can't pierce your bedroom with sharp laughter or gunfire, burst your eardrums. ...... It cannot touch your mind unless you give it to it; It cannot touch your heart unless you put your heart into it. ...... To read a book well, follow it, interpret it, feel it, become it. "Exactly. In reading activities, once the reader's attention is taken away from the book, the reading behavior cannot continue. This means that although this behavior is caused by books, it is largely dominated, controlled, and even determined by the reader. Reading is the awakening of books to people, and readers must single-handedly imagine everything from the abstract words arranged on the page: sounds, movements, characters, scenes, emotions, emotions... If the basic grammar of reading activities is to summon the reader's imagination, the basic grammar used in contemporary electronic media is to simplify the difficulty of the audience's imagination, which has its own convenient function in contemporary daily life, but can never replace reading.

Further, the above characteristics of reading activity determine that it is an act closely related to the depth of the human spirit. Le Guin said that "reading is actually working with the author's mind", not only that, but it is also a deep excavation and shaping of the reader's mind. This shaping begins with language and goes deep into the mind and spirit. A reader continues to train his concentration, imagination, memory, logical thinking and construction ability in the process of going deep into a book. Reading activities foster mature rationality. In the patience of reading, we further learn not to be limited to our immediate and immediate narrow needs, but to usher in the final outcome of the text in the long and patient waiting, discovery, analysis and interpretation. At the same time, since the reading activity is controlled by the reader in form, it also responds to the reader's needs at any time, leaving time and space for him or her to think. During reading, we can stop at any time and return to a certain line on a page before, and the text will silently wait for the reader's return with quiet patience. It must be admitted that the grammar of electronic media rejects this repetition and evocation on the whole, because it violates the law of swiftness and convenience and immediate pleasure of electronic media; Correspondingly, in contemporary electronic media products, films worthy of repeated recollection are only a few. It should be noted that the pleasure of reading and the pleasure of viewing are both similar and fundamentally different. People can survive in the age of electronic media without having to read, but giving up reading may mean giving up a profound sense of human pleasure and a meaningful spiritual ability.

In fact, the act of universal reading has not existed for very long in human history. Before the popularization of printing and basic education, reading was only a minority right, and reading behavior also became an important type of activity that reflected and maintained social power, class, status, and relationship to a certain extent. Today, reading has long since become a popular act, and the traditional aura that used to surround reading and books is also dissipating in modern life. In the age of electronic media, more and more people grow up and stop reading. However, no matter how the impact of reading in contemporary adult life is diluted, when it comes to reading, especially for children, our society and culture still hold a certain universal attachment and even faith. The message behind this is worth recalling again and again.

Reading a book is never as easy as watching a TV series, but we still can't let go of this cultural act that isn't easy. It seems to imply that the act of reading stores certain codes in the genes of human civilization that cannot be lost. This is an important starting point for us to talk about children's reading in today's life context, and it is also an important starting point for us to think about the future of reading civilization.

Second, what will artificial intelligence technology bring to children's reading

For a long time, one of the main purposes of human reading was for the accumulation, extraction and application of knowledge. As contemporary society increasingly enters the era of artificial intelligence, this process of accumulation, extraction and application can almost be completed by corresponding AI technology. Based on the powerful computing power potential of AI, it can not only far surpass the human brain in terms of knowledge statistics and calculation, but also continue to participate in the creation and invention of knowledge. From 2019 to 2022, breakthroughs in AI technology are among the annual scientific breakthroughs published by Science magazine. From "AI Wins in Multiplayer Poker" in 2019 to "Creative AI 'Accelerating'" in 2022, AI technology is penetrating into all aspects of human civilization, including literature and art, often considered the most original. If in the near future, we only need to input specific knowledge or create requirements to AI devices to obtain corresponding results or results, the purpose and way of human reading and learning will inevitably undergo fundamental changes.

School education in the AI era will no longer attach importance to the mechanical accumulation of knowledge, and the focus on creative learning will inevitably increase. At the same time, this creativity is not only based on the learning accumulation of the human brain, but also on the powerful computing power of AI technology. When AI memory, computing, imagination and creation become a new starting point for human memory, computing, imagination and creation, what role will children's reading play in it, and how should it meet the challenge of this revolution? The focus of children's reading may further shift to the following three aspects.

First, the way knowledge and ideas are generated. Children's reading in the AI era will not only focus on a variety of knowledge and concepts, but also on the way they are generated. With the help of reading provided by AI technology, reading activities will become more convenient, open and efficient for children. Under the label of a specific reading topic or interest, children can not only quickly find the corresponding text of demand, but also use the powerful information support of AI to carry out creative and in-depth exploration of any doubts or concerns in the text. Such inquiry-based reading will become the basic way for children to read in the AI era. As children more clearly understand and see the origin of knowledge and concepts in texts, a more mature view of knowledge will be effectively shaped earlier in childhood, so as to better promote the cultivation and stimulation of individual creativity.

Second, the depth of emotional understanding and spiritual experience. Contemporary AI technology is increasingly occupying territories that were previously considered insurmountable, such as human emotions and spirits. Theoretically, as long as people's emotions and spirits also have a certain universality, their universal laws may be included in the powerful computing power of AI. Therefore, given enough input of information, no matter how disordered and complex the original state of that information may appear, AI will have the potential to grasp, simulate, and even create human emotional ways to a large extent. Examples of AI exploration in recent years prove that literature and art, which used to be considered difficult for artificial intelligence to codify, are constantly dissolving with the development of AI technology. Soon, it will not be a problem for AI to engage in general literary and artistic creation. By then, most of the children's books on the market today may be created by AI. But there are also some children's books that will continue to show their nature in the AI era that can only be created by excellent writers. With their creative, unique language that integrates with the content of expression, these children's books take us deep into the rich emotional and spiritual world of childhood. Each of us has experienced the world as children, but few have been able to use words to take us to understand it so accurately and deeply. Such accuracy and profundity come from a certain mystical understanding and penetration of phenomena and experiences by the human body (both physical and spiritual). While AI can effectively mimic the stylistic patterns of human emotional and spiritual expression, it cannot fundamentally mimic this depth. In fact, this depth and its origin also define the fundamental difference between AI and people. In the era of children's reading, because general children's book texts will become easier to produce and obtain, the emotional and spiritual depth of the above-mentioned children's books will also be more recognized and emphasized.

Third, the special significance of language and culture to people. In the AI era, excellent, human-created children's books should still have a simple and simple language face, but they will also lead children to understand and relive the mysterious meaning and value of human language - a realm that only human perception and intuition can reach, and AI's computing power will be excluded from this mysterious tacit understanding that only humans can understand. In addition, throughout the ages, one of the essences of children's reading is to maintain and preserve the "sense of residence" and "sense of home" of language, language as a cultural marker of human beings, not only an important expression and communication tool, but also to some extent to define and construct the state of human existence, through language we can achieve, reach the insight and understanding of the meaning of human existence, and thus obtain important confirmation and solace of self-existence, we "live" in language, as if living in the home, full, comfortable, peaceful, This function of children's literature is particularly important and will remain here to stay.

3. Advocate the concept and practice of "whole reading" for children

Regardless of electronic media or artificial intelligence, it will not end the era of reading, but will rewrite the existing concept and form of reading.

For the foreseeable future, children's reading activities will exist in two basic forms. One is traditional book reading. Compared with electronic media, paper books are a more technically basic and stable reading medium. When an ink-printed book is placed in front of a child, there is no need to go through any intermediaries such as power supplies, chips, screens, etc., but only with the light that can be obtained from nature and the most primitive human muscle movements, the child can turn to it. The sense of belonging and stability established between the reader and the books he reads, which has not been diluted by too many technical intermediaries, is likely to bring an irreplaceable pleasure to paper book reading, and it is one of the reasons why paper reading is still full of charm in the era of electronic media. Of course, with the breakthrough of electronic media technology, children's book reading may also be increasingly extended to electronic media platforms, that is, replacing traditional paper books with e-books that highly restore the form of paper books. This kind of electronic reading is not fundamentally different from paper reading.

The second form of children's reading is what we call "whole reading." "Whole reading" advocates extensive reading of all texts, and is a reading concept and practice worth advocating. In addition to books, real life is full of all kinds of "texts": billboards, leaflets, all kinds of introductions and instructions, including all kinds of words on electronic screens that are ubiquitous in contemporary life... A deep reader is not a bookworm locked up in a bookstore, but is able to apply the unique sensitivity cultivated from reading books to all texts in life, so as to understand them more fully, completely, and maturely, and thus better control the environment and self. This concept and practice of "whole reading" will on the one hand promote children's reading to open up their horizons to a wider range of reading texts, and on the other hand, it will also prompt people to pay more attention to the importance of children's reading literacy.

It should be noted that for a long time, on the topic of children's reading, the public's attention has often been more focused on the quality level of reading materials. It is generally believed that the quality of children's books determines the welfare of children's reading, and the rights and interests of children's reading can be protected by strictly controlling the quality of book texts.

However, in the consideration of children's reading activities, text quality is only one of the keys, and reading literacy is the other key. In the current reading environment, even a small, well-edited print book is far from guaranteeing the reliability of every piece of children's reading material, measured by its strict educational value. Based on this consideration, we have put forward "expectations for 'critical children'", "guide children to read a book from a critical perspective, learn to discover the advantages of the book, read its shortcomings, and respond appropriately". This view of the "critical reader" can be further extended to the broader social and cultural textual context that children face. Teaching children how to face a book with a critical reading posture, and also teach them how to face other generalized "texts" with this posture, is an important expansion of children's reading literacy in the future, and it is also a requirement for children's reading in the new era and life.

Today, what Neil Postman calls the "symbolic environment" of traditional childhood is constantly dissolving and at the rate of development of today's electronic media, the traditional information world is bound to be "out of control" in the future for children. Instead of allowing children to be caught in this out-of-control chaos, it is better to put the effective methods and paths of reading all information texts into the hands of children while striving to explore and establish a new order, give them a critical and reflective ability to texts, improve children's reading literacy, and in the vision of caring for the future, such "reading" will enable children to gain new growth power.

This means that the development of reading literacy may be more important than ever for children in the age of electronic media and artificial intelligence. So, where does a reliable reading literacy for children come from? At least so far, its most important basis is still book reading. Through the interaction with books, feel the deep pleasure of reading sensibility and reason, learn the important skills of reading discrimination and judgment, understand the words, images and all other symbols that are unique values and complex representations of human culture, know how to understand the mysteries of the aesthetic world, and have the courage and insight to break through the shackles of pseudo-aesthetic discourse. Through this process, the reading literacy cultivated will become a reliable starting point for children to practice "whole reading" in an increasingly complex contemporary living environment, and will also be a solid foundation for them to identify and construct themselves in the era of accelerated contemporary media and technology. In this regard, paper reading still has a long way to go in the future.