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Abstract

There is worldwide concern about the decline in children and adolescent enjoyment of reading as documented by international and national surveys, with smartphones and other technologies often blamed for the decline.

Yet, with recent rapid improvements in technologies for reading, the accelerated adoption of devices for learning during the pandemic and increased access to e-books through the public library system in Singapore, the relationship between adolescent technology use and reading may be more complex than is typically painted in popular press.

This mixed-methods study seeks to make current an understanding of adolescent reading in relation to technology by exploring adolescents’ preferred reading devices, their use of technology for reading and their use of public e-resources for reading.

In this study, adolescents preferred using their smartphones over print forms for reading and preferred to read social media online. E-books accessed freely through the public library were under-utilised, and adolescents reported lack of knowledge or experience about how to look for reading resources online. Findings suggest an intentional and nuanced approach is needed to create an ecosystem of opportunities for adolescents to have meaningful reading experiences in print and digitally.

Key words: leisure or independent reading, adolescent reading, print and e-reading, technology.

Referência: © 2022 The Authors. Literacy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of United Kingdom Literacy Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.