I read insatiably as a youth, but when I married I had little time, then raising my young child I had no time to read. The internet and email took any time I would otherwise have spent reading. It hasn't been a bad bargain, really. TV on the other hand has rarely seemed worth the time. Most of my life has been in TV-free households.

My son is approaching 10 years old, and I find time to read a few books again (both fiction and non-). I am sure I will read increasingly in the fullness of time, and perhaps many of the teens who put aside a reading habit in favour of the internet will also return to reading at times. I doubt whether most kids who haven't learned to enjoy reading will love it later, though.

Meanwhile, while I was reading this thread this afternoon my son happily announced he had finished devouring Karlson on the Roof (by Astrid Lindgren), then headed off to cut his own hair. The last few days I've been reading him Watership Down by Richard Adams. If I dig out The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien which got lost earlier this summer, he'll probably finish it. Both are definitely written for adults, but have lots to offer him.

Internet text and magazine articles certainly use a different kind of concentration and attention, so a population trained in these will lack some of the abilities with which we grew up. Will they gain other valuable skills? Will a holistic grasp of fragmented information, or a new research skill, replace lost skills of memory and comprehension? I fear the path of least resistance is just to cruise, illiterate, following glowing electronic seductions into a darker age.