Reader: Come Home, by Maryanne Wolf, 2018, Harper Collins
More often than not, book reviews are for newly published books not for those that are seven years old. Yet, the content of this “old” book is more relevant to us today than it was seven years ago.
The author writes about how digitalization has changed and continues to change our reading behavior and habits. As we move into a world of digital-everything and our attention span diminishes faster than a soap bubble, we need to understand how digital is changing not only how we read but also what we do with the information. Ms. Wolf also uses an unusual format in this book: her text is all “letters to the reader” – each chapter a letter.
She starts with a thorough description of what happens in the brain when we read. Brain physiology is familiar to me: as an undergraduate majoring in psychology I had to take multiple classes on this. Still I was captivated by the description of how the brain works while it is reading. The description of the author is narratively and visually (circus-themed visuals) fascinating as they help us follow the brain deciphering the symbols and sounds of letters, syllables, words, and sentences. This process creates links between brain cells and in specialized areas of the brain to develop understanding. What we understand is filed for later use and later use does happen all the time. Each time we see a word or a phrase we go back to our filing system. This description is an entire chapter (a letter to the reader) but in real life, all the deciphering, linking, understanding and filing away happens in nanoseconds. Reading is like magic that we take for granted every day.
Once the author establishes the magic of reading, she focuses on the differences between reading physical versus digital materials. Studies show again and again that readers of physical materials have better recall and reconstruction of what they just read (or was read to them in the case of small children). She concludes that the ” …digital changes the quality and capacities of our working memory.”
Digital reading is not the first time our brains and its capacities changed because of technology. The author acknowledges similar impacts from the inventions of writing, printing and recording. But those technologies still had physicality which appears to have a direct impact on both working and long term memory. When the working memory is reduced (which the digital does) the long term memory is also reduced.
The digital hurries, distracts, narrows. We become dependent on the predictable sameness and on external sources of information, at the end of search engines, not needing to remember anything. Owners of the search engines like our dependence – more dependence more exposure to advertisement. We don’t even notice the growing “sameness” as it becomes a fact of our life. The sameness is a result of the algorithm that the digital uses. When we are reduced to a simple algorithm we are easier to manipulate.
If we had a chance to learn discernment early in life, we can distinguish between what is manipulation and what is real. This early learning needs physical materials not digital. Experiments show evidence of this again and again. Printed materials teach not only their content but also patience, serial and critical thinking, logical organization and tactile connections. Yet the young today are exposed to digital everything before their brain circuitry had a chance to form.
If we did not get this early learning or if we ended up spending increasing amount of time in the digital, we become impatient, our attention span gets shorter and shorter. We no longer can, or want to, read deeply. Deep reading builds the skill for deep thinking. This skill is declining further with each new generation. When we are not thinking deeply we are even easier to manipulate. Soon we forget to be curious or to ask questions. Since we are attending less and less, we lose the skill for making smart decisions and choices socially, economically or politically. Being a sustainable development expert, I fear for the sustainability of a world populated by people who don’t know how to make smart choices.
A particular paragraph in the above context resonated:
“When language and thought atrophy, when complexity wanes and everything becomes more and more the same, we run great risks in society and politics – whether from extremist in a religion or a political organization or less obviously from advertisers.” (page 86)
Perhaps this is an explanation for the growing authoritarian tendencies we see throughout the world. Digital raised people don’t want to think because it is too much work and they no longer can. It is easier to be told what to do, what to think and what to choose.
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