If a picture tells a thousand words, then the two images below from a recent report by the Global Information Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego are of interest. The first image shows the average American’s hourly information consumption per day. Note that the small yellow wedge represents printed text, which of course is the overwhelmingly dominant information medium in P-12 schools.

Hourlyinformationconsumption

The second image shows the decreasing prevalence of printed text in our lives since 1960:

Hourlyinformationconsumption2

These data represent average Americans. I’m sure they would look different if we just looked at our younger generations.

It’s simple, really:

Singlemediaschools

How long are American schools going to get away with these kinds of expansive disconnects between how we consume information in schools and in our daily lives?