[Junior]

Whoa! Hold on their, Hoss. Kids are spending inordinate amounts of time on the internet, which is nearly all text; if they could not read they could not surf the web.

[Looking4Truth]

Whoa! Hold on their, Hoss. Kids are spending inordinate amounts of time on the internet, which is nearly all text; if they could not read they could not surf the web.

You do have a point, but I'd be willing to bet that the kids that are on the internet are playing stupid computer games or trying to download porn rather than engaging in political discourse at FR.

[Cleburne]

My youngest brother spends hours on the 'net, and he's four years old (my parents spaced us out). He tends to play games or look at pictures on websites we put him on, or he types in himself (he has memorized the spelling to lego.com). But he obviously isn't reading, and relies on multi-media content for entertainment. My middle brother, nearly thirteen, is also an avid Internet user, but again, while he can read, his reading skills are limited, and he too uses mostly multi-media websites. I doubt that many children are going to launch into "educational" or reading intensive websites-there is enough material that requires little reading skill to pacify them.