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Online Skim Reading Is Taking Over the Human Brain
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Michael S. Rosenwald reports in the Washington Post that, according to cognitive neuroscientists, humans seem to be developing digital brains with new circuits for skimming through the torrent of information online at the expense of traditional deep reading circuitry... Maryanne Wolf, one of the world's foremost experts on the study of reading, was startled last year to discover her brain was apparently adapting, too. After a day of scrolling through the Web and hundreds of e-mails, she sat down one evening to read Hermann Hesse's challenging novel The Glass Bead Game. 'I'm not kidding: I couldn't do it,' says Wolf. 'It was torture getting through the first page. I couldn't force myself to slow down so that I wasn't skimming, picking out key words, organizing my eye movements to generate the most information at the highest speed. I was so disgusted with myself.'
The brain was not designed for reading and there are no genes for reading like there are for language or vision. ... Before the Internet, the brain read mostly in linear ways — one page led to the next page, and so on. The Internet is different. With so much information, hyperlinked text, videos alongside words and interactivity everywhere, our brains form shortcuts to deal with it all — scanning, searching for key words, scrolling up and down quickly. This is nonlinear reading, and it has been documented in academic studies. ... Some researchers believe that for many people, this style of reading is beginning to invade our ability to deal with other mediums. 'We're spending so much time touching, pushing, linking, scrolling and jumping through text that when we sit down with a novel, your daily habits of jumping, clicking, linking is just ingrained in you,' says Andrew Dillon."
The brain was not designed for reading and there are no genes for reading like there are for language or vision. ... Before the Internet, the brain read mostly in linear ways — one page led to the next page, and so on. The Internet is different. With so much information, hyperlinked text, videos alongside words and interactivity everywhere, our brains form shortcuts to deal with it all — scanning, searching for key words, scrolling up and down quickly. This is nonlinear reading, and it has been documented in academic studies. ... Some researchers believe that for many people, this style of reading is beginning to invade our ability to deal with other mediums. 'We're spending so much time touching, pushing, linking, scrolling and jumping through text that when we sit down with a novel, your daily habits of jumping, clicking, linking is just ingrained in you,' says Andrew Dillon."
tl;dr
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
No it's called neuroplasticity, here's a wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen’t mttaer, the olny thnig thta’s iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy.
All that moving and whatnot gets adapted real quick with NoScript. I can still read books just fine but looking at cnn.com without NoScript I can't do.
get over it.
I am a fast reader (>400words per minute), and when i skim a screenful of information or code I exceed this significantly.
There are some things which you need to understand:
* Reading may be fast, but comprehending may be tricky. If a page of code contains a tricky algorithm, it can take a week
* Classic literature (for which my speed drops below 200 word per minute) is not structured for being read quickly. If may be structured to model a thought process, or even a pattern of spoken language. Take your time to read it, and accept it.
* Literature often has dialogues, or reflections of dialogues. keepign two viepoints necessarily disrupts your reading speed. Books which have a lot of decription of though processes or viewpoints of characters contain more information. The more brilliant of these books manage to refer indirectly to the processes and let you infer a large part of what is going on (e.g. "Midnights Chrildren"). Obviously the limiting factor is not reading, but understanding.
I have been doing this since usenet days. I got hooked to newsgroups early. I was about 18 years old and this was 1990. I have not been able to read ordinary books since then. I can read technical books just fine. The kind that pack a lot of information. I have tried several times, but have utterly failed to read fiction. Something inside me tells me that I am wasting my time. Not that I don't waste time. I do that a lot. I watch plenty of movies, TV, hang out with friends and family etc. etc. and I "skim the Internet" a tonne. I have a good job, wife and two kids. It is not entirely clear to me how this "problem" is hurting me.
As a culture have improved our speed-reading skills? I don't see how this is a problem, especially as a student who can apply these concepts and skills to textbooks. Disclaimer: I skimmed this summary and TFA may address this.
The summary makes it clear that the 'problem' is that the improved skim reading may come at the expense of in-depth reading.
Are you old enough to remember this
http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Ev...
I did the speed reading course when I was 14, still couldn't read Shakespeare, ah well.
Go well
The brain was not designed for reading
It wasn't designed for anything.
And who's to say the invention of writing hasn't already had some impact on human evolution? I know it hasn't been long in the grand scheme of things, but moths didn't take long to adapt to the industrial revolution.
there are no genes for reading like there are for language or vision
Well, there are genes which have an impact on language development if faulty or missing, but are they necessarily "genes for language"?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I notice this as well.
I enjoy recreational reading very much, but notice that I must make a definite effort to slow down so that I better appreciate the book.
That word doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
He's developing brains in his fingers
I read Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game" long before the Internet even existed, and it was completely fucking opaque even back then.
licet differant, aequabitur
It depends on the book. I for one started reading Arthur C Clarke's Rama series, and I couldn't put it down.
It's taking over the brains of those who participate 24/7 in, for lack of a better word, might be called the Twittersphere. I'm not condemning Twitter in general, but the entire weltanschauung of the situation that people like Maryanne Wolfe live in. Anyone who doesn't exist in this false world (i.e. most of humanity) doesn't have this experience at all. They're able to read deep texts, and you bet your ass they'll be ready to supplant these feeble minds in the future.
The really scary part is that these Twitter minds lack the ability to see outside themselves. If it happens to me, then it happens to all of humanity. After all, all the people I know are in the Twittersphere, and that's the whole world...or at least the world worth knowing. Because if Maryanne Wolfe can't do it, that means the human brain is changing. Sad...but then again I find myself understanding why civilizations that have everything fall. It comes from taking it all for granted and neglecting the first principles that got us here...like realizing the world has an independent existence outside of you and your little buddies.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
God wanted us to read faster so we don't remember as much so we don't question his authority as much.
Dammit man, you made me break from reading the comments and into the Wikipedia article. Throwing my brain around like that gets confusing.
signature is pants
I was surprised when I was a kid back 25 years ago, that my dad could skim through text very fast.
He worked as a journalist, and as such he was used to skimming through a lot of text to find the good bits that he could use as leads and sources for his articles.
The difference to the Internet today, is just that more people are exposed to larger amounts of many different types of text, just like "text-workers" like my dad was back then.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I caught myself skimming the wikipedia article, and suddenly realized the irony.
Doesn't apply to me. Perhaps because I don't skim articles and read the entire thing.
You're on the wrong site.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I've always been able to switch it on and off just fine, even after spending the vast majority of the past 15 years sitting at a computer, on the internet.
I skim through things at great speed when they don't really interest me, or I'm mostly looking for specific pieces of information, but it's never prevented me from being able to change gears and linearly read something...
And I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a patient person (or particularly disciplined, for that matter) so it's certainly not because I'm making a conscious effort *not* to skim when I read linearly.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Yeah, me too I would have chosen to read a second time The Glass Bead Game if I wanted to make that point, or maybe Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. Don’t misunderstand me, I love Hesse and I read it all, ten years ago. Here is the flaw: anyone here used to read a lot and still reading a lot of novels or essays would have suffer attention troubles trying to get through that book, as “challenging” it may be, if his or her actual interests and questionings don’t merge with theses of the book. Yes the brain is rewiring itself when we’re browsing fresh news on the internet, jumping from “Nature” to “Io9”, checking “IEET page” on Facebook while writing a comment on some Singularity blog, yes we are constantly creating new neural pathways, adapting to our (virtual and “high frequency trading” environment), but maybe she would have better tried to measure her remaining attention skills upon some essay or novel she’d never have read before and which’d have presented some direct interest. For instance, I never read Bilbo the hobbit, I admit it, don’t kill me. I tried once I had eleven yo and I didn’t like it, and it’s still just not my thing, even if I “know” it’s a huge cultural piece blabla. I still would not get through it if I had to try now. And it’s not because of my new adapted skimming neural circuits wired for the internet. It’s just because I don’t care, as challenging it may be. I recently devoured Henry Miller’s Rosy Crucifixion and made a second reading of Cioran’s All Gall Is Divided, without trouble focusing, even if I’m a huge and daily “internet resident.” I suggest she repeats the experiment reading an actual challenging novel/essay which could catch her interest and only If she did not read it once yet.
You may laugh, but I won't read novels by authors like Cormack McCarthy on anything but my kindle. Why? Because if there's a word I don't know, I push on it for a bit, and get the dictionary definition. Nothing has aggrandised my lexical ability as this humble feature.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Which is why the Bible is so long. I guess I don't get atheist humor.
... then skipped the rest of the bullshit.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I've been ADHD since the 8th grade in the 80's. I simply can't read a book without skimming and turning pages when I come upon a section that seems boring. Since moving to unabridged audiobooks I'm actually hearing the whole novel.
How perfect --- the quote of the day:
Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject -- the actual enemy is the unknown. -- Thomas Mann
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them.
- Peter the Hermit, 13th Century AD
I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... the present youth are exceedingly impatient of restraint
-Hesiod, 8th century BC
The art of letter-writing is fast dying out. When a letter cost nine pence, it seemed but fair to try to make it worth nine pence ... Now, however, we think we are too busy for such old-fashioned correspondence. We fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper.
- The Sunday Magazine 1871
It is, unfortunately, one of the chief characteristics of modern business to be always in a hurry. In olden times it was different.
- The Medical Record 1884
With the advent of cheap newspapers and superior means of locomotion... The dreamy quiet old days are over... For men now live think and work at express speed. They have their Mercury or Post laid on their breakfast table in the early morning, and if they are too hurried to snatch from it the news during that meal, they carry it off, to be sulkily read as they travel ... leaving them no time to talk with the friend who may share the compartment with them... The hurry and bustle of modern life ... lacks the quiet and repose of the period when our forefathers, the day's work done, took their ease...
- William Smith, Morley: Ancient and Modern, 1886
Conversation is said to be a lost art ... Good talk presupposes leisure, both for preparation and enjoyment. The age of leisure is dead, and the art of conversation is dying.
- Frank Leslie's popular Monthly, Volume 29 1890
Intellectual laziness and the hurry of the age have produced a craving for literary nips. The torpid brain ... has grown too weak for sustained thought.
There never was an age in which so many people were able to write badly.
- Israel Zangwill, The Bachelors' Club 1891
The art of pure line engraving is dying out. We live at too fast a rate to allow for the preparation of such plates as our fathers appreciated. If a picture catches the public fancy, the public must have an etched or a photogravured copy of it within a month or two of its appearance, the days when engravers were wont to spend two or three years over a single plate are for ever gone.
- Journal of the Institute of Jamaica, Volume 1 1892
So much is exhibited to the eye that nothing is left to the imagination. It sometimes seems almost possible that the modern world might be choked by its own riches, and human faculty dwindle away amid the million inventions that have been introduced to render its exercise unnecessary. The articles in the Quarterlies extend to thirty or more pages, but thirty pages is now too much so we witness a further condensing process and, we have the Fortnightly and the Contemporary which reduce thirty pages to fifteen pages so that you may read a larger number of articles in a shorter time and in a shorter form. As if this last condensing process were not enough the condensed articles of these periodicals are further condensed by the daily papers, which will give you a summary of the summary of all that has been written about everything. Those who are dipping into so many subjects and gathering inform