A paper published last year in the online journal Archives of Disease in Childhood has claimed that “young children whose parents read aloud to them have better language literacy skills when they go to school.” Such children are also more likely to end up as booklovers. This may yet turn out more significant than the advantages in language and literacy.

Of course, not all parents are willing and able to read aloud to their children. Those who can afford it, send their young children to money-making mills masquerading as prep schools or daycare centers.

607.1 Billion SMS

Guess, us Pinoys need to stop tooting our horns and claiming we are the text-messaging capital of the world. In China, some 607 billion SMSs were sent last year by subscribers of mobile phone operator China Mobile. That is only one of the country’s mobile operators.

Anyway, data released by the company revealed that Chinese mobile subscribers also love reading mobile newspapers and downloading songs. China Mobile said more than 41 million subscribers paid for mobile newspapers, while 76 million full-track songs were downloaded. Beat that, Juan and Juana de la Cruz.

Mobile Down Time in U.S.

Millions of U.S. mobile phone subscribers have reduced their cell phone spending, according to findings of Opinion Research Corp., which conducted a survey of American consumers for Washington, D.C.-based think tank New Millennium Research Council.

This cost-cutting move among subscribers is a trend that is expected to continue, according to Opinion Research.

In turn, mobile operators’ contract-based businesses are expected to suffer the brunt of this recession-reared trend, while prepaid mobile services are set to further expand.

Well, their American counterparts might be in panic mode, but our local mobile operators on the other hand are so used to a prepaid services-driven market. In fact, they earn a huge part of their revenues from their prepaid customers.

Nokia Recycles

Nokia launches more than 30 mobile devices every year. The company’s product lines range from the low-end phones to the highest-end handsets that come crammed with features, such as media players, multi-megapixel cameras, Web browsers, mobile games and huge built-in memories.

With its handsets accounting for more than a third of the market, the Finnish company is morally responsible for a proportionate share of the eco-trash generated by the mobile phone industry.