Reading online or reading a book... Does it really matter?

Books are not Nadia Konyk’s thing. Her mother, hoping to entice her, brings them home from the library in Berea, Ohio, but Nadia rarely shows an interest.

Instead, like so many other teenagers, Nadia, 15, is addicted to the Internet. She regularly spends at least six hours a day in front of the computer here in this suburb southwest of Cleveland. Her mother, Deborah Konyk, would prefer that Nadia, who gets A’s and B’s at school, read books for a change. But at this point, Konyk said, “I’m just pleased that she reads something anymore.”

Children like Nadia lie at the heart of a passionate debate about just what it means to read in the digital age. The discussion is playing out among educational policymakers and reading experts around the world, and within groups such as the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association. For more, read this article in The New York Times online.