In the digital age, where reading material is abundant, sustained and deep reading is falling out of favor. Readers have lost the 'cognitive patience' that they had reading complex works in the pre-internet age.
Deep reading, that was once natural, is now a struggle, thanks to the explosion of shallow material and reduced attention spans.

The Lost Art Of Reading

The Internet is training our brain to adapt and work differently than in the last century, as the changing technological landscape requires different cognitive skills.The new digital mediums mostly do not have the quality, as most of the stuff online seems uninteresting, but it has the quantity, making it even more discordant and chaotic.

Rewiring The Brain

The brain has been conditioned to feed on bite-sized snacks of shallow literature, and a reconditioning of the brain is essential.The old-school print books were a way to slow down the mind, turning it less anxious and jittery, resulting in a satisfying trance-like experience, almost like a low-level meditation. We need to stop feeding our minds with disposable, junk knowledge and focus on developing it by reading healthy literature.

Junk Reading Vs Healthy Reading

New readers, especially children have reduced deep-reading skills.Digital media is consumed differently in a 'skimming' time-bound way, as opposed to the profound, thoughtful reading associated with print books.People have become addicted to digital devices, as the content they see and read may not be deep and immersive, but is engaging and conversation like, rendering it more alive than the printed word.

Reading In The Digital Age

Not long ago, a cognitive neuroscientist decided to perform an experiment on herself. Maryanne Wolf, an expert on the science of reading, was worried-as perhaps you have worried-that she might be losing the knack for sustained, deep reading.

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