As MIT scholar Sherry Turkle has written, we do not err as a society when we innovate, but when we ignore what we disrupt or diminish while innovating. This is not a simple, binary issue of print vs digital reading and technological innovation. There’s an old rule in neuroscience that does not alter with age: use it or lose it Photograph: Sjale/Getty Images/iStockphoto Research surfacing in many parts of the world now cautions that each of these essential “deep reading” processes may be under threat as we move into digital-based modes of reading. My research depicts how the present reading brain enables the development of some of our most important intellectual and affective processes: internalized knowledge, analogical reasoning, and inference perspective-taking and empathy critical analysis and the generation of insight. That circuit evolved from a very simple mechanism for decoding basic information, like the number of goats in one’s herd, to the present, highly elaborated reading brain. Unbeknownst to most of us, an invisible, game-changing transformation links everyone in this picture: the neuronal circuit that underlies the brain’s ability to read is subtly, rapidly changing - a change with implications for everyone from the pre-reading toddler to the expert adult.Īs work in neurosciences indicates, the acquisition of literacy necessitated a new circuit in our species’ brain more than 6,000 years ago. Parents and other passengers read on Kindles or skim a flotilla of email and news feeds. Younger school-aged children read stories on smartphones older boys don’t read at all, but hunch over video games. The iPad is the new pacifier for babies and toddlers.
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