In a Digital Multimedia World, Are Children Listening?

Sharon Murphy     September, 2026

"You're not listening!" is the lament of many today, and the digital multimedia world is sometimes implicated in such accusations. Indeed, although still and moving images are portrayed as click bait that lure users into digital media worlds, the role of audio has received less attention. 

Enter the National Literacy Trust (Arif, Clark, & Picton, July 2026) in England who recently surveyed 110,114 children aged 5 to 18 to find out about their listening habits in relation to audiobooks and podcasts. Among the things the researchers looked at were enjoyment, listening and reading, and patterns across age groups. It turns out that about half of those surveyed listened to either podcasts, audiobooks or both.

Age-wise, younger children listen to audiobooks while older children listen to podcasts. Children said that each of these mediums engaged them in different ways. Audiobooks were reported as being "more often linked to storytelling, imagination, emotional engagement and reading-related experiences, while podcasts were more often associated with information, personal interests and understanding other people’s views" (Arif et al., 2026, p. 2). Given that nearly 60% of those surveyed indicated they enjoyed listening to audio, the students' enjoyment of audio could become a possible pathway for cultivating enjoyment of reading and writing since enjoyment levels for these literacy practices are reported as being much lower than for listening.

A key feature of whether children listen to audio is the match between the material children listen to and their interests. Interest is such a motivating factor that, even though children enjoy podcasts less than audiobooks, they use podcasts more widely because of their relevance. The psychoanalyst, Adam Phillips (2022), says that "when we are interested, we pay attention; sometimes at considerable cost." Indeed, interest can be a gift that we give to others in the form of time and relationship building. However, Adams (2022) also says that even though “people’s attention can be exploited and manipulated and directed, ...it can't be ultimately controlled.”

Given these dynamics, understanding the individual and situational factors we have to play with in any literacy engagement can go some ways towards helping us cultivate interest. First of all, we have to know the children in our classes enough to understand their individual interests--interests which may relate to their culture, social status, gender, emotional attachments, goals or knowledge (Bergin, 1999; Hidi & Anderson, 1992). Knowing our students, instead of assuming who they are and what they know, results in engagement with the students seated in front of us rather than with the students of our imaginations (Matusov & Smith, 2007). In addition, we can design into educational experiences specific situational factors--factors such as novelty, activity, fantasy, comedy, social interactions, and puzzles (Bergin, 1999; Hidi & Anderson, 1992)--that have been shown to cultivate attention and interest. Once we become attentive to these possibilities we can potentially open up for students new experiences in audio listening or other literacy practices.

References

Arif, A., Clark, C., & Picton, I. (2026, July). Children and young people’s audio listening in 2026. National Literacy Trust.

Bergin, D.A. (1999). Influences on classroom interests. Educational Psychologist, 34(2), 87-98.

Hidi, S. & Anderson, V. (1992). Situational interest and its impact on reading and expository writing. In K.A. Renninger, S. Hidi, A. Krapp, & A. Renninger (Eds.), The role of interest in learning and development (pp. 215-238). Psychology Press.

Matusov, E., & Smith, M.P. (2007). Teaching imaginary children: University students’ narratives about their Latino practicum children. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 705-729. DOI:10.1016/j.tate.2005.09.012

Phillips, A. (2022). Attention seeking.  New York: Picador  (e-book)

Note: This blog is supported in part by the Senior Scholars Research Fund at York University, Toronto.