Bite-sized. Easily-digestible. Short. Preferably visual. Punctured and interrupted by hyperlinks and pop-up messages. Designed for scrolling, not deep-reading and for capturing the crumbs of our attention. 

Digital reading has changed how we read. 

I’m sure you, like me, are aware of how we inhabit a world of distraction, continuously checking our devices, skimming and scanning text and information. 

The reality is that through digital reading we are all reading more than we used to. In her book “Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World”, Wolf points out that the average person in the US now reads the same number of words as are in a short novel on a daily basis. The key question though is, what kind of reading is it? Is it continuous, sustained, concentrated as in deep reading? Does it matter?

Digital reading requires different skills to cope with the sheer volume of information we must process and means skimming has become the new normal. Digital reading usually means hours spent on a distraction-saturated internet, where sequential thinking is less important or necessary than when we pick up a book or a newspaper. 

Wolfe states, “the more we read digitally, the more our underlying brain circuitry reflects the characteristics of that medium.”

Her argument is not one of trying to stem the tide of digital reading, but rather to acknowledge them as two distinct types of reading, each requiring their own skills. Both are important in today’s world, but she is emphatic about the importance of print reading as a foundation for literacy (of all types). The deep-reading processes that make up the expert reading brain circuit may otherwise become rusty from disuse or, in the case of children, not develop fully at all. 

Deep reading is what allows our brains to develop the skills Digital media conditions us to consume content rapidly rather than engage in deep reflection. We instantly download or stream a song, article, book, or movie, rush through it (unless we’re distracted by the endless alternatives available), and then move on to the next fleeting experience.

To be a reader is to reflect, absorb, and properly digest what we have consumed. It takes time and space and stillness. Wolf cautions us to not equate information with knowledge, and knowledge with wisdom. 

This book really hit home for me – as a reader, as a writer, as a parent, as someone watching the world flooded with more and more information coming at us relentlessly through our devices.

My takeaways are:

• Make time for print reading over digital reading
• Read slowly, don’t rush
• Create empty spaces for reflection and thinking, try to dim the noise
• Encourage children to read books, to train the cognitive patience needed to begin a story and see it through to the end- small steps are better than none at all

There’s so much more to say about this book and how it makes us reflect on the current reading situation than is allowed by this limited digital space. All I can say is, go read it!