> This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
> The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.
You also need "evangelism" from people in a position to influence. That's unlikely to be librarians; and parents/teachers are also not the best-positioned for that.
Overall the costs of social media likely still outweigh the harms here, but it seems to me like they've identified a legimitate "good" usage in encouraging reading in certain niches.
How to replicate that without social media? Gotta make a bunch of local kid "influencers."
> The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.
You also need "evangelism" from people in a position to influence. That's unlikely to be librarians; and parents/teachers are also not the best-positioned for that.
Overall the costs of social media likely still outweigh the harms here, but it seems to me like they've identified a legimitate "good" usage in encouraging reading in certain niches.
How to replicate that without social media? Gotta make a bunch of local kid "influencers."