Do you have the cognitive patience to read this?
August 29, 2018 6:42 AM Subscribe
Skimming has led, I believe, to a tendency to go to the sources that seem the simplest, most reduced, most familiar, and least cognitively challenging. I think that leads people to accept truly false news without examining it, without being analytical. One of my major worries is that when you lose the novel, you lose the ability to go into another person’s perspective. My biggest worry now is that a lot of what we’re seeing in society today — this vulnerability to demagoguery in all its forms — of one unanticipated and never intended consequence of a mode of reading that doesn’t allow critical analysis and empathy. A neuroscientist explains what tech does to the reading brain (SL Verge).
This is interesting from a scientific branding point of view, because Maryann Wolf is not really a neuroscientist. If you look at her publication list, she's only been involved in a few neuroscience studies, and never as a senior author. She's pretty clearly a psychologist, not a neuroscientist. Are explaining neuroscientists more convincing than explaining psychologists?
posted by IjonTichy at 6:52 AM on August 29, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by IjonTichy at 6:52 AM on August 29, 2018 [13 favorites]
tl;dr
but I did skim, and found this ironic:
"This interview has been lightly edited for clarity."
posted by slipthought at 6:52 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
but I did skim, and found this ironic:
"This interview has been lightly edited for clarity."
posted by slipthought at 6:52 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
I kinda felt like this was happening with me a couple years ago, actually. But after a few months in a book club (so I had the monthly book, a deadline, and a discussion with people to help my brain hammer out analysis and process things) things greatly improved. My own independent pleasure reading is still kind of slow going, but it's picking up a little more....I'm finding more of a conscious balance between "online reading" and "paper reading" and things are steadily improving.
I've also heard the adage that it takes only 1/20th the amount of time to wean yourself off a habit than it took you to get into it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:04 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
I've also heard the adage that it takes only 1/20th the amount of time to wean yourself off a habit than it took you to get into it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:04 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
Lately I've been trying to get back into reading proper novels after several years of falling out of the habit, and I've found that it is incredibly hard for me to not skim now. I often don't even realize I've been doing it until I'm near the bottom of the page and I'm only sort of aware of what is going on in the story.
When I pulled up this article, in fact, I reflexively scrolled down to the middle of the article and then started skimming for no discernible reason. Yikes.
posted by De Veras at 7:15 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
When I pulled up this article, in fact, I reflexively scrolled down to the middle of the article and then started skimming for no discernible reason. Yikes.
posted by De Veras at 7:15 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
I didn't skim this article, but the first thing I did was scroll to the bottom to see how much of a time commitment it would involve.
I've never been much good at extracting information by skimming, for whatever reason. But I do think I've had increasing difficulty maintaining extended focus, which may be just a different manifestation of what Wolf is talking about. In my case, it comes in the form of task-switching every so often. And I catch myself doing it and asking myself "Can't you just finish this article first? Instapaper says it's only a 15-minute read." It is a rare pleasure when I find a novel that overrides that task-switching impulse and I can stick with it for an hour at a time or more.
posted by adamrice at 7:31 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
I've never been much good at extracting information by skimming, for whatever reason. But I do think I've had increasing difficulty maintaining extended focus, which may be just a different manifestation of what Wolf is talking about. In my case, it comes in the form of task-switching every so often. And I catch myself doing it and asking myself "Can't you just finish this article first? Instapaper says it's only a 15-minute read." It is a rare pleasure when I find a novel that overrides that task-switching impulse and I can stick with it for an hour at a time or more.
posted by adamrice at 7:31 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm going to start by disagreeing with IjonTichy about whether Maryann Wolf is a neuroscientist. Neuroscience, as we understand it, is a comparatively young field (you don't see independent departments in it at all until the last two or three decades). Psychology, when it is concerned with mechanism, is neuroscience, because it's concerned with how the brain does what it does. There are some elements of psychology that are harder to make into neuroscience, but reading research isn't one of them.
For that matter, reading research is a deep (and old) area in psychology research. I've bumped into it a fair bit over the years, since I have research interests that are adjacent (visual crowding, which the problem of objects [like letters] in the periphery being detectable but difficult to identify, and legibility, the problem of how easy [or not] something is to read). It's also the wellspring, in a lot of ways, for the study of eye movements (Javal's work in the 1870s). It's an interesting corner of things, and one that I only know a little about, but it's absolutely neuroscience in much the way that much of what is classically psychology is neuroscience: it's interested in how the brain lets us do things.
I'm a vision researcher. My PhD is in Psychology, but I'm absolutely a neuroscientist, because I'm interested in what the brain does, and what it lets us do.
I don't find the argument in the interview particularly compelling, since variants of "kids these days aren't reading / thinking / working / doing whatever" in the way we did have been around since antiquity, but the need to slow down and read more methodically if you want better retention and deeper thought is a good one, regardless. There's a huge difference, for me, in the speed I read fiction (150-200 pages/hour) and the speed I read journal papers (probably an order of magnitude slower), and that's because my goals when I read vary. If I'm reading a novel, I'm reading it for the story. If I'm reading a journal article, I'm reading it for the data, the methods and the arguments, and that takes a slower, more methodical approach.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 7:35 AM on August 29, 2018 [22 favorites]
For that matter, reading research is a deep (and old) area in psychology research. I've bumped into it a fair bit over the years, since I have research interests that are adjacent (visual crowding, which the problem of objects [like letters] in the periphery being detectable but difficult to identify, and legibility, the problem of how easy [or not] something is to read). It's also the wellspring, in a lot of ways, for the study of eye movements (Javal's work in the 1870s). It's an interesting corner of things, and one that I only know a little about, but it's absolutely neuroscience in much the way that much of what is classically psychology is neuroscience: it's interested in how the brain lets us do things.
I'm a vision researcher. My PhD is in Psychology, but I'm absolutely a neuroscientist, because I'm interested in what the brain does, and what it lets us do.
I don't find the argument in the interview particularly compelling, since variants of "kids these days aren't reading / thinking / working / doing whatever" in the way we did have been around since antiquity, but the need to slow down and read more methodically if you want better retention and deeper thought is a good one, regardless. There's a huge difference, for me, in the speed I read fiction (150-200 pages/hour) and the speed I read journal papers (probably an order of magnitude slower), and that's because my goals when I read vary. If I'm reading a novel, I'm reading it for the story. If I'm reading a journal article, I'm reading it for the data, the methods and the arguments, and that takes a slower, more methodical approach.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 7:35 AM on August 29, 2018 [22 favorites]
I think the last novel I read was Goblin Emperor, which was solid. I really dislike skimming and seldom do it, but the vast, vast bulk of works over 50k words I've consumed since 2012 have been fanfic. Can you like 100% guarantee your book doesn't kill its queers? Has it been reviewed positively or ficced by anyone whose opinion I take seriously? ok cool story buddy I'm gonna reread Homestuck or Known Associates.
Seriously, though, if you can't attract the attention of snake people who grew up with Harry Potter and argued about Fëanor all through high school maybe your problem isn't the volume of your work. I know not everyone my age is this kind of nerd but a whole lot of us are.
posted by bagel at 7:38 AM on August 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
Seriously, though, if you can't attract the attention of snake people who grew up with Harry Potter and argued about Fëanor all through high school maybe your problem isn't the volume of your work. I know not everyone my age is this kind of nerd but a whole lot of us are.
posted by bagel at 7:38 AM on August 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
As a followup (and so as to not abuse the Edit button): you'll almost always see psychologists described as neuroscientists in popular press coverage, because the label psychologist is often interpreted as clinical psychologist, rather than "interested in the brain and behavior." Neuroscientist doesn't have that interpretation.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 7:39 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 7:39 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Skimming I think is a useful skill to have, especially when there is an entire clickbait industry built around hiding a single piece of information deep into a slideshow or a blog post. People will stretch the simple answer to a single question into a multi-paragraph article and then remix it into 100 of these articles so you spend more time looking at more ads on their simulacrum of an informational website. These people are SEO experts, so they're hard to escape. It's an intentional inversion of the journalism pyramid and it's awful and I hate it.
I don't generally read books (I know - boo, hiss) but I do have other hobbies which require similar sustained and deliberate focus. I'm certainly hopeful it's something I can train, because the hours when I am able to pull off concentration are rare but so fulfilling.
posted by one of these days at 7:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
I don't generally read books (I know - boo, hiss) but I do have other hobbies which require similar sustained and deliberate focus. I'm certainly hopeful it's something I can train, because the hours when I am able to pull off concentration are rare but so fulfilling.
posted by one of these days at 7:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
This is totally alien to me. I can skim, if I have to, if I'm looking for certain information like on wikipedia. Or sometimes when I'm reading fiction and I'm desperate to know what happens next, I pay far more attention to actions and nouns than descriptions - I do tend to go hills, forest, it's raining, yup got it and don't pay much attention to the adjectives
But generally, I read everything in full. I do read a lot of stuff on the internet, but a whole lot of that is because it's shorter, and I read books like an alcoholic drinks alcohol- once I start, I can't stop, I will read in every free moment until the story is finished (which can be multiple books!) so if I have stuff to do that day I just don't start. I don't see a significant difference in reading on the internet and reading irl, although you can argue that the sheer volume of reading material available is a big shift.
Sometimes if I'm vaguely interested in a book but not enough to actually read it I will go to wikipedia or somewhere to just read the plot synopsis, so I suppose in some cases I am skipping reading altogether, which is new. Although not that new because I used to read just the back and the last chapter of goosebumps books because I wasn't interested enough to read the whole thing. And actually, instead of skimming, I just quit articles that don't hold my interest beyond a couple paragraphs.
I will admit it probably helps that I am a very, very fast reader, which is one of the reasons I *hate* videos. So inefficient.
posted by stillnocturnal at 7:47 AM on August 29, 2018 [11 favorites]
But generally, I read everything in full. I do read a lot of stuff on the internet, but a whole lot of that is because it's shorter, and I read books like an alcoholic drinks alcohol- once I start, I can't stop, I will read in every free moment until the story is finished (which can be multiple books!) so if I have stuff to do that day I just don't start. I don't see a significant difference in reading on the internet and reading irl, although you can argue that the sheer volume of reading material available is a big shift.
Sometimes if I'm vaguely interested in a book but not enough to actually read it I will go to wikipedia or somewhere to just read the plot synopsis, so I suppose in some cases I am skipping reading altogether, which is new. Although not that new because I used to read just the back and the last chapter of goosebumps books because I wasn't interested enough to read the whole thing. And actually, instead of skimming, I just quit articles that don't hold my interest beyond a couple paragraphs.
I will admit it probably helps that I am a very, very fast reader, which is one of the reasons I *hate* videos. So inefficient.
posted by stillnocturnal at 7:47 AM on August 29, 2018 [11 favorites]
one of the reasons I *hate* videos. So inefficient.
Oh god, I know! All these blogs trying to launch videos talking about fanfic, why Dr. Demento was super-awesome, or their latest recipe, and it takes like three times as long for them to finish their goddamn words!
"Hi everybody! Today we're...."
Shut up! Shut up! Just show me the damn recipe!
posted by aramaic at 8:01 AM on August 29, 2018 [50 favorites]
Oh god, I know! All these blogs trying to launch videos talking about fanfic, why Dr. Demento was super-awesome, or their latest recipe, and it takes like three times as long for them to finish their goddamn words!
"Hi everybody! Today we're...."
Shut up! Shut up! Just show me the damn recipe!
posted by aramaic at 8:01 AM on August 29, 2018 [50 favorites]
I will not be skim shamed by blow hard authors, so precious about their little strings of words arranged in a particular order.
I look at my time spent reading every word of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station in horror.
posted by Damienmce at 8:07 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I look at my time spent reading every word of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station in horror.
posted by Damienmce at 8:07 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I will not be skim shamed by blow hard authors, so precious about their little strings of words arranged in a particular order.
I look at my time spent reading every word of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station in horror.
.....I think your problem is actually not "skim shaming", it is that you've somehow never internalized that it is okay to stop reading a book halfway if you don't like it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:13 AM on August 29, 2018 [14 favorites]
I look at my time spent reading every word of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station in horror.
.....I think your problem is actually not "skim shaming", it is that you've somehow never internalized that it is okay to stop reading a book halfway if you don't like it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:13 AM on August 29, 2018 [14 favorites]
Would be curious to read her works. The idea that the type of media we consume affects our attention span and train of thought is not new, though maybe the neurological angle is.
Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1985, and its core premise was that television "is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation—misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing". He didn't dig into physical effects, but did consider the cognitive effects. He also compared "televisual cultures" with oral cultures and literate (pre- and post-printing press) cultures. It leaves you, or at least left me, with a lot to think about.
Postman died in 2003, but I've often wondered what he would say about the modern internet that combines text, video, audio from random sources - all presented at the same "weight" to the user - as a primary source of information and discourse. Nothing good, I would imagine. Skimming would probably not be the primary complaint.
posted by jzb at 8:19 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1985, and its core premise was that television "is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation—misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing". He didn't dig into physical effects, but did consider the cognitive effects. He also compared "televisual cultures" with oral cultures and literate (pre- and post-printing press) cultures. It leaves you, or at least left me, with a lot to think about.
Postman died in 2003, but I've often wondered what he would say about the modern internet that combines text, video, audio from random sources - all presented at the same "weight" to the user - as a primary source of information and discourse. Nothing good, I would imagine. Skimming would probably not be the primary complaint.
posted by jzb at 8:19 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
Traditionally, news writing put the most important factual information into the lede, because very few people ever read the entire newspaper every day (usually newspaper employees tasked with quality checking). The formal structure of the "news" has assumed skimming for over 50 years.
Or we could critique how "being informed" is a soft requirement for many jobs, with the internet as one of those paradoxical inventions like the vacuum cleaner, the word processor, and the washing machine that created work by moving the goalposts.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:30 AM on August 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
Or we could critique how "being informed" is a soft requirement for many jobs, with the internet as one of those paradoxical inventions like the vacuum cleaner, the word processor, and the washing machine that created work by moving the goalposts.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:30 AM on August 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
Traditionally, news writing put the most important factual information into the lede, because very few people ever read the entire newspaper every day (usually newspaper employees tasked with quality checking). The formal structure of the "news" has assumed skimming for over 50 years.
Indeed. I edit a lot of writing meant for the web in my day job, and I spend a lot of time trying to hammer this home. No, the reader is not going to read your 600-word personal anecdote that prefaces the 700 words of actual information they want, kill it.
posted by jzb at 8:32 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
Indeed. I edit a lot of writing meant for the web in my day job, and I spend a lot of time trying to hammer this home. No, the reader is not going to read your 600-word personal anecdote that prefaces the 700 words of actual information they want, kill it.
posted by jzb at 8:32 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
In the past five years or so I've found myself skimming more often than I used to, and frankly started to wonder if it was the very first early bird of ultimate senior cognitive decline. It's almost always on a screen, where everything seems "lighter."
With the decline of gatekeepers and editors generally, I suppose part of the problem is the vast amount of material being "published" in which the writer isn't constrained to saying what she wants to say in the appropriate amount of space to say it.
I don't know who these people are who skim fiction, unless it's for professional reasons. If you're not interested in the gestalt effect, what are you doing? Put the book down. Do something you actually want to do.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
With the decline of gatekeepers and editors generally, I suppose part of the problem is the vast amount of material being "published" in which the writer isn't constrained to saying what she wants to say in the appropriate amount of space to say it.
I don't know who these people are who skim fiction, unless it's for professional reasons. If you're not interested in the gestalt effect, what are you doing? Put the book down. Do something you actually want to do.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
What occurred to me while reading this was how physically different reading online is for the most part. Beyond the basic busyness of the page, (often with literal carnival barkers in the form of self launching,) almost always with things that have to be scrolled past or through there is the slightly odd, when I think about it, fact that I am reading not just with my eyes but with my fingers. I feel like there is a tension there, my fingers are so much swifter than my brain reading that they begin to feel impatient.
I find it very intriguing to try to think about what it is like to be preliterate or not have numeracy. It is not a matter of intelligence but difference, I find I cannot imagine what it would be like. I am not so sure you can draw a direct line between a change in how people read and demagoguery but I am sure it is in there with everything else inside culture. It being a modern world for the last couple centuries the only thing I feel certain of is a deep and abiding sense of confusion as the world changes so much within such a short span of time. I do not doubt that reading has changed and I find it alternately depressing and irrelevant.
With regard to videos: I find I am almost angry with preamble, "high guys" makes me feel homicidal while watching a how to and I feel like there is a desperate need for google to make a web based video editor. I also notice that I do not have the patience for title credits, they have begun to seem anachronistic unless I am in a movie theater, and as far as capital M Movies go I feel like in a little while they will be to "TV" (aka the proto new forms from netflix, hulu, hbo, amazon etc. etc) as Opera was to Movies in the 20th century.
posted by Pembquist at 8:40 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
I find it very intriguing to try to think about what it is like to be preliterate or not have numeracy. It is not a matter of intelligence but difference, I find I cannot imagine what it would be like. I am not so sure you can draw a direct line between a change in how people read and demagoguery but I am sure it is in there with everything else inside culture. It being a modern world for the last couple centuries the only thing I feel certain of is a deep and abiding sense of confusion as the world changes so much within such a short span of time. I do not doubt that reading has changed and I find it alternately depressing and irrelevant.
With regard to videos: I find I am almost angry with preamble, "high guys" makes me feel homicidal while watching a how to and I feel like there is a desperate need for google to make a web based video editor. I also notice that I do not have the patience for title credits, they have begun to seem anachronistic unless I am in a movie theater, and as far as capital M Movies go I feel like in a little while they will be to "TV" (aka the proto new forms from netflix, hulu, hbo, amazon etc. etc) as Opera was to Movies in the 20th century.
posted by Pembquist at 8:40 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
'Glass Bead Game' is an interesting example, it's a kinda odd non linear narrative that stops just a bit before radical avant guardism. I haven't read it in a while, so I should glance at it again to see how it holds up? The other Hesse novels that I've reread in the last couple of years (with more conventional narratives) held up okay.
posted by ovvl at 8:42 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 8:42 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't mean to single out Making You Bored for Science as I mostly agree with their comment, but this notion: I don't find the argument in the interview particularly compelling, since variants of "kids these days aren't reading / thinking / working / doing whatever" in the way we did have been around since antiquity
gets bandied around a lot in various forms now, most commonly in a "Get off my lawn" kinda reference and I think the phenomenon is being a little misunderstood. It isn't that old people are demented, unable to see things are the same as ever, as much as change is a constant that age reveals. The relationship between the old and young stays roughly similar because change over one's lifetime does actually occur.
Mostly we adapt to the change as we grow, with the young people often not fully even realizing the extent of difference involved since they are growing up in this new environment. As much social change comes from technology and information sharing it tends not to revert to previous practice since the tech remains and the information is gained. That, however, doesn't mean there aren't risks or loss associated with change as much as there are gains, more that we come to accept whatever the cost was as only those who were invested in the old system really experience the different effect of the new.
None of that is to say older folks are necessarily right about any given change being "bad" or "kids these days" being worse off, but that writing off the effects of change because of the history of concern over changes is, I think, a mistake. It is worth remembering that in discussing things like this we mostly are talking about those changes that actually stuck, not the myriad possible changes that were mooted or attempted and then abandoned. Pointing out the potential costs of computer reading now, at the early stage of change is important for providing opportunity to look more closely at what effects might come from acting without due caution.
I personally think it is hard to deny that we are now learning to read for machines, write for machines, and think for machines in the sense of our abilities are being subordinated to the function and construct of computers and their applications. Whether that is a good thing I can't say, but it is something to worry about I think.
Even though recent history has been one of general progress, we have at least temporarily lost some measure of general ability to understand and deal with the natural world and the methods of production that bring us all the goods we rely on. People in "advanced society" are almost completely alienated from that part of the world which is the majority of our history. People are in thrall to corporate interests much because many don't know any other way to exist even as there were fights over that control still in living memory. Accepting some changes means potentially losing greater authority over our own lives, this may or may not be one of those times, but it isn't something I'm willing to dismiss lightly.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:48 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
gets bandied around a lot in various forms now, most commonly in a "Get off my lawn" kinda reference and I think the phenomenon is being a little misunderstood. It isn't that old people are demented, unable to see things are the same as ever, as much as change is a constant that age reveals. The relationship between the old and young stays roughly similar because change over one's lifetime does actually occur.
Mostly we adapt to the change as we grow, with the young people often not fully even realizing the extent of difference involved since they are growing up in this new environment. As much social change comes from technology and information sharing it tends not to revert to previous practice since the tech remains and the information is gained. That, however, doesn't mean there aren't risks or loss associated with change as much as there are gains, more that we come to accept whatever the cost was as only those who were invested in the old system really experience the different effect of the new.
None of that is to say older folks are necessarily right about any given change being "bad" or "kids these days" being worse off, but that writing off the effects of change because of the history of concern over changes is, I think, a mistake. It is worth remembering that in discussing things like this we mostly are talking about those changes that actually stuck, not the myriad possible changes that were mooted or attempted and then abandoned. Pointing out the potential costs of computer reading now, at the early stage of change is important for providing opportunity to look more closely at what effects might come from acting without due caution.
I personally think it is hard to deny that we are now learning to read for machines, write for machines, and think for machines in the sense of our abilities are being subordinated to the function and construct of computers and their applications. Whether that is a good thing I can't say, but it is something to worry about I think.
Even though recent history has been one of general progress, we have at least temporarily lost some measure of general ability to understand and deal with the natural world and the methods of production that bring us all the goods we rely on. People in "advanced society" are almost completely alienated from that part of the world which is the majority of our history. People are in thrall to corporate interests much because many don't know any other way to exist even as there were fights over that control still in living memory. Accepting some changes means potentially losing greater authority over our own lives, this may or may not be one of those times, but it isn't something I'm willing to dismiss lightly.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:48 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
I didn't skim, so I think the word "of" in the pullquote's phrase "...of one unanticipated and never intended consequence..." was supposed to be the word "is."
That said, I have been feeling for several years like I am getting more flighty and unable to concentrate. Audiobooks, which I can't skim while I am driving, are a good antidote to this tendency.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:53 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
That said, I have been feeling for several years like I am getting more flighty and unable to concentrate. Audiobooks, which I can't skim while I am driving, are a good antidote to this tendency.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:53 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Are explaining neuroscientists more convincing than explaining psychologists?
Probably, given the prevailing cultural notion that 'hard science' is objective and quantitative and therefore valuable while squishier humanities-adjacent 'soft science' is qualitative and therefore useless and worthless. 'Neuroscience' has the word 'science' right inside it and sounds much STEMmier and therefore more Trustworthy and Important and Valid.
posted by halation at 9:08 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
Probably, given the prevailing cultural notion that 'hard science' is objective and quantitative and therefore valuable while squishier humanities-adjacent 'soft science' is qualitative and therefore useless and worthless. 'Neuroscience' has the word 'science' right inside it and sounds much STEMmier and therefore more Trustworthy and Important and Valid.
posted by halation at 9:08 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
With the decline of gatekeepers and editors generally, I suppose part of the problem is the vast amount of material being "published" in which the writer isn't constrained to saying what she wants to say in the appropriate amount of space to say it.
I came here to more or less say that. There's a lot of stuff online that requires skimming, to separate the bit wheat from a lot of chaff.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:08 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I came here to more or less say that. There's a lot of stuff online that requires skimming, to separate the bit wheat from a lot of chaff.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:08 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's no data.
There's NO DATA.
Hi - I woke up one day, and realized that now that I use the alarm clock on my phone instead of my clock, I have to use complex arm and hand motions in the morning, and I'm more likely to check my email. I can frame this in a relatively relatable way, and connect it to existing science related to muscle development, rsi, habits, and maybe even tech addiction, so clearly I should write an article about how the clock function on smartphones is changing the musculature of our arms, and maybe also our brains. Plus some cautions about how this will hurt the children.
This is an interesting opinion piece based on an observation of....herself. Maybe it's even a grant proposal. But it is NOT a scientific demonstration of anything. All her hypotheses are testable in some form or another. She just didn't test them. Because if she did, the interview would say "my results" or "the data shows", or "studies find" and not "I believe".
Data or gtfo.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:13 AM on August 29, 2018 [21 favorites]
There's NO DATA.
Hi - I woke up one day, and realized that now that I use the alarm clock on my phone instead of my clock, I have to use complex arm and hand motions in the morning, and I'm more likely to check my email. I can frame this in a relatively relatable way, and connect it to existing science related to muscle development, rsi, habits, and maybe even tech addiction, so clearly I should write an article about how the clock function on smartphones is changing the musculature of our arms, and maybe also our brains. Plus some cautions about how this will hurt the children.
This is an interesting opinion piece based on an observation of....herself. Maybe it's even a grant proposal. But it is NOT a scientific demonstration of anything. All her hypotheses are testable in some form or another. She just didn't test them. Because if she did, the interview would say "my results" or "the data shows", or "studies find" and not "I believe".
Data or gtfo.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:13 AM on August 29, 2018 [21 favorites]
...like i was saying
posted by halation at 9:16 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by halation at 9:16 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
Audio books, and podcasts, those work really well. Also - pausing to argue with the writer - sometimes gives the material more attention than it deserves, but it also keeps the old argumenter in good condition.
I wonder about this, because I've noticed myself getting a lot less focused too, it's definitely not a "kids these days" thing. I don't read anymore because I'm always getting the urge to alt-tab out of the book and look at tumblr. I get that urge all the time, even when I'm playing a video game - something engaging and fun that also uses a screen. I get that urge even when I'm already looking at social media! I'm probably extreme in that, but it's worth taking seriously the idea that social media is intentionally designed to mimic addiction, and maybe it's, you know. Succeeding in that goal.
I read a lot of really big long books when I was a kid, even though I also had a Gameboy and a TV and access to PCs, and ... it's a little distressing to lose that.
so it would be really really nice if there was data.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 9:18 AM on August 29, 2018 [12 favorites]
I wonder about this, because I've noticed myself getting a lot less focused too, it's definitely not a "kids these days" thing. I don't read anymore because I'm always getting the urge to alt-tab out of the book and look at tumblr. I get that urge all the time, even when I'm playing a video game - something engaging and fun that also uses a screen. I get that urge even when I'm already looking at social media! I'm probably extreme in that, but it's worth taking seriously the idea that social media is intentionally designed to mimic addiction, and maybe it's, you know. Succeeding in that goal.
I read a lot of really big long books when I was a kid, even though I also had a Gameboy and a TV and access to PCs, and ... it's a little distressing to lose that.
so it would be really really nice if there was data.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 9:18 AM on August 29, 2018 [12 favorites]
it's a kinda odd non linear narrative that stops just a bit before radical avant guardism.
Here's a peculiar thing I've found worrisome in an inchoate way lately: over the past couple of years, I've been revisiting creative work in various media that I remember discovering as a young adult 20-25 years ago that is, to varying degrees, absurd, avant-garde, non-linear, surreal. I guess I was expecting to ride the ride of deep weirdness again or something, but what I've found is that many of those works just...don't seem so weird anymore. Not because I'm familiar with them, but because--like much great art--they're eerily prescient about some kind of ineffable things, and apparently were foreshadowing what it feels like to be here now, to experience the changes we're living through, and so I experience them as just more normal and less unexpected or alien. I mean, holy shit, any Dadaist or Expressionist or Futurist or Absurdist would be amazed by a random sample of Youtube videos (amazed in addition to 'HOLY SHIT COMPUTERS', that is). Their high-concept weirdness has been utterly culturally mainstreamed, their exaggeration was not nearly hyperbolic enough. This worries me.
I personally think it is hard to deny that we are now learning to read for machines, write for machines, and think for machines in the sense of our abilities are being subordinated to the function and construct of computers and their applications.
I think we have been for a few thousand years, and the degree to which that's true is proportional to our level of engagement with our machines. So we've been on a crescendo with this, with the rate of change accelerating exponentially. McLuhan said it a decade or so after the dawn of mass media, the medium is the message. This passage, written in 1985 by Neil Postman, has long stayed with me:
posted by LooseFilter at 9:21 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
Here's a peculiar thing I've found worrisome in an inchoate way lately: over the past couple of years, I've been revisiting creative work in various media that I remember discovering as a young adult 20-25 years ago that is, to varying degrees, absurd, avant-garde, non-linear, surreal. I guess I was expecting to ride the ride of deep weirdness again or something, but what I've found is that many of those works just...don't seem so weird anymore. Not because I'm familiar with them, but because--like much great art--they're eerily prescient about some kind of ineffable things, and apparently were foreshadowing what it feels like to be here now, to experience the changes we're living through, and so I experience them as just more normal and less unexpected or alien. I mean, holy shit, any Dadaist or Expressionist or Futurist or Absurdist would be amazed by a random sample of Youtube videos (amazed in addition to 'HOLY SHIT COMPUTERS', that is). Their high-concept weirdness has been utterly culturally mainstreamed, their exaggeration was not nearly hyperbolic enough. This worries me.
I personally think it is hard to deny that we are now learning to read for machines, write for machines, and think for machines in the sense of our abilities are being subordinated to the function and construct of computers and their applications.
I think we have been for a few thousand years, and the degree to which that's true is proportional to our level of engagement with our machines. So we've been on a crescendo with this, with the rate of change accelerating exponentially. McLuhan said it a decade or so after the dawn of mass media, the medium is the message. This passage, written in 1985 by Neil Postman, has long stayed with me:
Each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility. Which, of course, is what McLuhan meant in saying the medium is the message.Because our media direct so much of what we see and know--and how we see and know it--these machines also deeply influence our behavior. (And on preview: thus, data is needed, because this is important.)
[Our media] are rather like metaphors, working by unobtrusive but powerful implication to enforce their special definitions of reality. Whether we are experiencing the world through the lens of speech or the printed word or the television camera, our media-metaphors classify the world for us, sequence it, frame it, enlarge it, reduce it, color it, argue a case for what the world is like. As Ernst Cassirer remarked:Physical reality seems to recede in proportion as man’s symbolic activity advances. Instead of dealing with the things themselves, man is in a sense constantly conversing with himself. He has so enveloped himself in linguistic forms, in artistic images, in mythical symbols or religious rites that he cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of [an] artificial medium.What is peculiar about such interpositions of media is that their role in directing what we will see or know is so rarely noticed. A person who reads a book or who watches television or who glances at his watch is not usually interested in how his mind is organized and controlled by these events, still less in what idea of the world is suggested by a book, television, or a watch.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:21 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
Much the same argument as is made here about reading online could be made about reading pulp. In even a beautifully written action adventure story, one reads in great gulps, because it is all about what happens next, not about the human motives for it happening, differences in the precise quality of how each character experiences it happening, or about how each character describes what is happening to themselves and to each other. If one goes from action adventure pulp to, say, Virginia Woolf, one can wind up continually in the position of turning a page and thinking "Wait, what just happened?" because one missed better than half of what was said. You have to slow way the fuck down and pay close attention. On the other hand, reading pulp that way is like driving a Maserati at 55. That's not what it's for.
Seems to me that one doesn't finish learning to read ever, and that a good part of learning to read is learning appropriate tempos.
posted by ckridge at 9:24 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
Seems to me that one doesn't finish learning to read ever, and that a good part of learning to read is learning appropriate tempos.
posted by ckridge at 9:24 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
There's NO DATA.
I'd suggest that it's probably better to look for data in Prof. Wolf's extensive publications in the fields of neuropsychology and neurolinguistics, or in the actual book she's published, rather than inferring its absence on the basis of one exceptionally short interview. I find it a bit objectionable to complain about an absence of data without making even a cursory effort to find out if it exists.
posted by howfar at 9:24 AM on August 29, 2018 [12 favorites]
I'd suggest that it's probably better to look for data in Prof. Wolf's extensive publications in the fields of neuropsychology and neurolinguistics, or in the actual book she's published, rather than inferring its absence on the basis of one exceptionally short interview. I find it a bit objectionable to complain about an absence of data without making even a cursory effort to find out if it exists.
posted by howfar at 9:24 AM on August 29, 2018 [12 favorites]
This essay definitely doesn't say anything new. But it got me thinking about a maybe related issue?
I recently read The Name of the Rose, which is... not a light read. Out of idle curiosity, I tried to google the word count, and came upon a site that said people should average '12 hours' reading the book. I'm not sure how long I took. But I found myself wondering if it were around that time, or faster, or slower. If I knew for sure I took less time, I'd feel pride; more time, self-consciousness.
And then I asked myself why. Why does it matter if I took less time, or more time, if I enjoyed all the time I spent on it? Because I've internalized that faster reading correlates with intelligence. Because we look with envy on people who say they read 52 or 100 books a year. We look down on those who read only four or six books a year.
But when a book is truly valuable to me, I slow down to a glacial pace. I read a paragraph, and spend five minutes thinking about that paragraph, and then read the next paragraph, and then pause, not even thinking, just pausing in wonder, and then when I finish the chapter I go back and reread it because I wonder if the beginning of the chapter will reveal new things to me now that I've read the entire chapter, and then when I finish the book I go back and reread the entire thing.
I think those of us who see value on reading put this arbitrary pressure on ourselves to read as many books as possible- as opposed to getting as much as we can out of what we read. We have a culture where we brag about the number of books we have on our nightstand and how many books we have on hold.
I think this is the rare case where we could learn something from videogames: for all literary types poke fun at their 'attention span' the culture there is the exact opposite, where deep, sustained engagement with a game for as long as possible, and a game that rewards that engagement, is prized. That leads to its own issues (like an inability to appreciate shorter works), but it's still noteworthy.
Yeah, I agree phones are probably ruining our attention span, but maybe part of the blame also lies the way our culture values worldliness over depth- a thin, surface knowledge of as many things as possible over a true understanding on a few subjects.
posted by perplexion at 9:34 AM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
I recently read The Name of the Rose, which is... not a light read. Out of idle curiosity, I tried to google the word count, and came upon a site that said people should average '12 hours' reading the book. I'm not sure how long I took. But I found myself wondering if it were around that time, or faster, or slower. If I knew for sure I took less time, I'd feel pride; more time, self-consciousness.
And then I asked myself why. Why does it matter if I took less time, or more time, if I enjoyed all the time I spent on it? Because I've internalized that faster reading correlates with intelligence. Because we look with envy on people who say they read 52 or 100 books a year. We look down on those who read only four or six books a year.
But when a book is truly valuable to me, I slow down to a glacial pace. I read a paragraph, and spend five minutes thinking about that paragraph, and then read the next paragraph, and then pause, not even thinking, just pausing in wonder, and then when I finish the chapter I go back and reread it because I wonder if the beginning of the chapter will reveal new things to me now that I've read the entire chapter, and then when I finish the book I go back and reread the entire thing.
I think those of us who see value on reading put this arbitrary pressure on ourselves to read as many books as possible- as opposed to getting as much as we can out of what we read. We have a culture where we brag about the number of books we have on our nightstand and how many books we have on hold.
I think this is the rare case where we could learn something from videogames: for all literary types poke fun at their 'attention span' the culture there is the exact opposite, where deep, sustained engagement with a game for as long as possible, and a game that rewards that engagement, is prized. That leads to its own issues (like an inability to appreciate shorter works), but it's still noteworthy.
Yeah, I agree phones are probably ruining our attention span, but maybe part of the blame also lies the way our culture values worldliness over depth- a thin, surface knowledge of as many things as possible over a true understanding on a few subjects.
posted by perplexion at 9:34 AM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
Interesting. I have never mouthed what I was reading. But yesterday I made a conscious effort to do just that. All in an effort to not miss any of what I was reading. So far it appears to be helping me concentrate on the task at hand.
posted by notreally at 9:39 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by notreally at 9:39 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
howfar- I strongly believe that scientists can communicate rigorously without sacrificing simplicity. But your suggestion is a fair empirical question, so I went to Scholar and her website. As I'm sure you know, books are not peer reviewed, so are not eligible for consideration regarding published findings. I'm happy to retract my comment if you're aware of data, but I can't find anything published although there is PERHAPS a forthcoming study that might be relevant.
In contrast, I do find things like this : Breazeal, C., Morris, R., Gottwald, S., Galyean, T. & Wolf, M. (2016). "Mobile devices for early literacy intervention and research with global reach." Conference paper to be published in Proceedings of the Third ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, Edinburgh, Scotland. So this is a complex issue of whether her hypotheses about reading still relate to the medium or the general immersion of technology, since she's solving one problem (access) by potentially creating another (tech dependence) in an already vulnerable population with limited resources.
I'm not saying she's a bad scientist. I'm saying she doesn't appear to have any data supporting this particular theory. So right now, it's just a theory, and I'm not comfortable with presenting it as fact. (But I mean this in all earnestness, I am MORE than happy to retract my comment if there's data!)
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
In contrast, I do find things like this : Breazeal, C., Morris, R., Gottwald, S., Galyean, T. & Wolf, M. (2016). "Mobile devices for early literacy intervention and research with global reach." Conference paper to be published in Proceedings of the Third ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, Edinburgh, Scotland. So this is a complex issue of whether her hypotheses about reading still relate to the medium or the general immersion of technology, since she's solving one problem (access) by potentially creating another (tech dependence) in an already vulnerable population with limited resources.
I'm not saying she's a bad scientist. I'm saying she doesn't appear to have any data supporting this particular theory. So right now, it's just a theory, and I'm not comfortable with presenting it as fact. (But I mean this in all earnestness, I am MORE than happy to retract my comment if there's data!)
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
don't know who these people are who skim fiction, unless it's for professional reasons.
I've done that, usually when I decide a book is crap but I do want to see what happens.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I've done that, usually when I decide a book is crap but I do want to see what happens.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I've been skimming most of the things I read since I was about five years old. If I like something I just read it over and over. Tech's got nothing to do with it
posted by potrzebie at 9:44 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 9:44 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
"I'm going to start by disagreeing with IjonTichy about whether Maryann Wolf is a neuroscientist. Neuroscience, as we understand it, is a comparatively young field (you don't see independent departments in it at all until the last two or three decades). Psychology, when it is concerned with mechanism, is neuroscience, because it's concerned with how the brain does what it does. There are some elements of psychology that are harder to make into neuroscience, but reading research isn't one of them.
For that matter, reading research is a deep (and old) area in psychology research. I've bumped into it a fair bit over the years, since I have research interests that are adjacent (visual crowding, which the problem of objects [like letters] in the periphery being detectable but difficult to identify, and legibility, the problem of how easy [or not] something is to read). It's also the wellspring, in a lot of ways, for the study of eye movements (Javal's work in the 1870s). It's an interesting corner of things, and one that I only know a little about, but it's absolutely neuroscience in much the way that much of what is classically psychology is neuroscience: it's interested in how the brain lets us do things."
In the sense that the mind is what the brain does, all psychologists are neuroscientists, but this blurs what I think is a useful distinction between researchers who use primarily behavioural methods and researchers who use methods which tap into neural activity at least somewhat more directly: EEG, fMRI, intracellular recording, etc. This distinction can be very important in practice; it's very rare, for example, to see a paper with no neural methods appear in a journal like Journal of Neuroscience. The distinction is also important theoretically, because when theorizing about how a computational task is carried out one needs to specify whether one is talking about the implementational level of analysis or a higher level.
This is related to a phenomenon I've noticed in popular science that bothers me, which is that "brain" is used basically interchangeably with "mind". In this article, for example, Dr. Wolf says "My proposal is for a “bi-literate brain.” We need to train children to evaluate what is before them. What is the best medium? There are certainly going to be more than two mediums, and some will be far more visual or kinesthetic. So the real goal is to figure out how to preserve what we have in deep reading and be able to exert that at will." What would be lost if the word "brain" were replaced with "mind"? She's not really making a hypothesis about the brain, here, she's talking about a shift between two mental states, which could in practice be carried out via any number of possible neural mechanisms.
posted by IjonTichy at 9:46 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
For that matter, reading research is a deep (and old) area in psychology research. I've bumped into it a fair bit over the years, since I have research interests that are adjacent (visual crowding, which the problem of objects [like letters] in the periphery being detectable but difficult to identify, and legibility, the problem of how easy [or not] something is to read). It's also the wellspring, in a lot of ways, for the study of eye movements (Javal's work in the 1870s). It's an interesting corner of things, and one that I only know a little about, but it's absolutely neuroscience in much the way that much of what is classically psychology is neuroscience: it's interested in how the brain lets us do things."
In the sense that the mind is what the brain does, all psychologists are neuroscientists, but this blurs what I think is a useful distinction between researchers who use primarily behavioural methods and researchers who use methods which tap into neural activity at least somewhat more directly: EEG, fMRI, intracellular recording, etc. This distinction can be very important in practice; it's very rare, for example, to see a paper with no neural methods appear in a journal like Journal of Neuroscience. The distinction is also important theoretically, because when theorizing about how a computational task is carried out one needs to specify whether one is talking about the implementational level of analysis or a higher level.
This is related to a phenomenon I've noticed in popular science that bothers me, which is that "brain" is used basically interchangeably with "mind". In this article, for example, Dr. Wolf says "My proposal is for a “bi-literate brain.” We need to train children to evaluate what is before them. What is the best medium? There are certainly going to be more than two mediums, and some will be far more visual or kinesthetic. So the real goal is to figure out how to preserve what we have in deep reading and be able to exert that at will." What would be lost if the word "brain" were replaced with "mind"? She's not really making a hypothesis about the brain, here, she's talking about a shift between two mental states, which could in practice be carried out via any number of possible neural mechanisms.
posted by IjonTichy at 9:46 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
As I'm sure you know, books are not peer reviewed, so are not eligible for consideration regarding published findings.
But it's not possible to know what studies it relies upon without at least considering the bibliography. Whether the argument made is convincing surely depends upon more than the primary research of the author.
I've no idea whether this theory is empirically supported, and I suppose that it's a fair comment about science communication to say that making the empirical basis of a theory clear is important (although I'm not sure it's an overriding consideration in all cases), but without looking at the book and the research it cites, I think it's premature to dismiss it as lacking empirical support.
posted by howfar at 9:48 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
But it's not possible to know what studies it relies upon without at least considering the bibliography. Whether the argument made is convincing surely depends upon more than the primary research of the author.
I've no idea whether this theory is empirically supported, and I suppose that it's a fair comment about science communication to say that making the empirical basis of a theory clear is important (although I'm not sure it's an overriding consideration in all cases), but without looking at the book and the research it cites, I think it's premature to dismiss it as lacking empirical support.
posted by howfar at 9:48 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
But when a book is truly valuable to me, I slow down to a glacial pace. I read a paragraph, and spend five minutes thinking about that paragraph
Or feeling! I'm near the end of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay and I'm inching along page by page because I'm so appalled by the signalled approach and now execution and soon-to-be-horrible-fallout of the extremely extremely bad decision the narrator is making.
(By the way, reading with pencil in hand isn't 100% effective against falling into inattentive reading, but it definitely helps.)
posted by praemunire at 9:48 AM on August 29, 2018
Or feeling! I'm near the end of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay and I'm inching along page by page because I'm so appalled by the signalled approach and now execution and soon-to-be-horrible-fallout of the extremely extremely bad decision the narrator is making.
(By the way, reading with pencil in hand isn't 100% effective against falling into inattentive reading, but it definitely helps.)
posted by praemunire at 9:48 AM on August 29, 2018
howfar - I suspect then that this is more of a philosophical argument than a real disagreement between us. I think the burden of proof is on the person asking us to believe their theory regardless of the medium of communication. I could cite 20 papers with results that seem to support my clock-arm theory, but until I test the clock-arm theory directly, in my opinion it's a bit premature for me to discuss it with the press, let alone write a book. I could not find a paper of hers that addresses this issue and she does not reference or even imply any such research. But maybe I skimmed her site too fast! :)
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:56 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:56 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
variants of "kids these days aren't reading / thinking / working / doing whatever" in the way we did have been around since antiquity
maybe, but please be advised that the quote you always see in this context, about Plato bitching about the kids on his lawn with their rude manners and saggy pants etc., is unsourced bullshit
posted by thelonius at 10:23 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
maybe, but please be advised that the quote you always see in this context, about Plato bitching about the kids on his lawn with their rude manners and saggy pants etc., is unsourced bullshit
posted by thelonius at 10:23 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
One of the reasons I *hate* videos. So inefficient.
I so agree, and find it very hard to learn from them because even the best are information-light compared to a book or paper.
I used to have a sideline writing computer books, but now publishers often want videos. Not my choice (when I get one), but it pays bills. And so I spent the weekend "proof watching" my latest series, and it was Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
It's a bit strange shouting "for heaven's sake, man, get on with it" at yourself.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 10:47 AM on August 29, 2018 [15 favorites]
I so agree, and find it very hard to learn from them because even the best are information-light compared to a book or paper.
I used to have a sideline writing computer books, but now publishers often want videos. Not my choice (when I get one), but it pays bills. And so I spent the weekend "proof watching" my latest series, and it was Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
It's a bit strange shouting "for heaven's sake, man, get on with it" at yourself.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 10:47 AM on August 29, 2018 [15 favorites]
Don't people have different reading speeds/attention levels according to their interest in the subject at hand and reasons for reading?
Like, if I'm just curious about something in general, I'm gonna skim. If it's a 6-page essay about something I already basically agree with, I'm gonna skim. If it's a novel, my attention is going to vary with the intensity of the story. If it's something I'm reading for learning a subject, I'm likely to read very closely.
posted by Foosnark at 11:02 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Like, if I'm just curious about something in general, I'm gonna skim. If it's a 6-page essay about something I already basically agree with, I'm gonna skim. If it's a novel, my attention is going to vary with the intensity of the story. If it's something I'm reading for learning a subject, I'm likely to read very closely.
posted by Foosnark at 11:02 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
It isn't that old people are demented, unable to see things are the same as ever, as much as change is a constant that age reveals.
I think that this is a really important observation. While of course there is lots of fogeyish whingeing about young people just being young damn their young eyes, history really does have lots of examples of genuinely disruptive change, with bad and good consequences in mixed measures. My favourite analysis of the invocations against trusting writing in Plato's Phaedrus dialogue is Derrida's Plato's Pharmacy. The point (which I'm oversimplifying) he makes is not that Plato is wrong to critique writing as untrustworthy and deficient in a true connection to the idealised mind, but rather that these very qualities are necessarily present in speech and language more generally, and are necessarily present in anything that could function as a substitute for these systems. That's not a reason to disparage speech, writing or any technology used for conveying them, but it does suggest that it's reasonable to be cautious about how our expressive tools might betray us, and useful to be attentive to their functioning and malfunctioning so that we can use them more effectively and in a safer way. Which basically seems to be Prof. Wolf's point too.
posted by howfar at 11:16 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think that this is a really important observation. While of course there is lots of fogeyish whingeing about young people just being young damn their young eyes, history really does have lots of examples of genuinely disruptive change, with bad and good consequences in mixed measures. My favourite analysis of the invocations against trusting writing in Plato's Phaedrus dialogue is Derrida's Plato's Pharmacy. The point (which I'm oversimplifying) he makes is not that Plato is wrong to critique writing as untrustworthy and deficient in a true connection to the idealised mind, but rather that these very qualities are necessarily present in speech and language more generally, and are necessarily present in anything that could function as a substitute for these systems. That's not a reason to disparage speech, writing or any technology used for conveying them, but it does suggest that it's reasonable to be cautious about how our expressive tools might betray us, and useful to be attentive to their functioning and malfunctioning so that we can use them more effectively and in a safer way. Which basically seems to be Prof. Wolf's point too.
posted by howfar at 11:16 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
please be advised that the quote you always see in this context, about Plato bitching about the kids on his lawn with their rude manners and saggy pants etc., is unsourced bullshit
You can't think this was not a topic for ancient authors, though. (Even that Plato 'quote' appears to have been taken from someone summarizing ancient views.) Tacitus, Annals, book 3:
"Domitius Corbulo, an ex-praetor, complained to the Senate that Lucius Sulla, a young noble, had not given place to him at a gladiatorial show. Corbulo had age, national usage and the feelings of the older senators in his favour. Against him Mamercus Scaurus, Lucius Arruntius and other kinsmen of Sulla strenuously exerted themselves. There was a keen debate, and appeal was made to the precedents of our ancestors, as having censured in severe decrees disrespect on the part of the young, till Drusus argued in a strain calculated to calm their feelings."
posted by praemunire at 12:46 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
You can't think this was not a topic for ancient authors, though. (Even that Plato 'quote' appears to have been taken from someone summarizing ancient views.) Tacitus, Annals, book 3:
"Domitius Corbulo, an ex-praetor, complained to the Senate that Lucius Sulla, a young noble, had not given place to him at a gladiatorial show. Corbulo had age, national usage and the feelings of the older senators in his favour. Against him Mamercus Scaurus, Lucius Arruntius and other kinsmen of Sulla strenuously exerted themselves. There was a keen debate, and appeal was made to the precedents of our ancestors, as having censured in severe decrees disrespect on the part of the young, till Drusus argued in a strain calculated to calm their feelings."
posted by praemunire at 12:46 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
you've somehow never internalized that it is okay to stop reading a book halfway if you don't like it.
This is me. Skimming is a solution.
posted by chavenet at 1:42 PM on August 29, 2018
This is me. Skimming is a solution.
posted by chavenet at 1:42 PM on August 29, 2018
I know this is a short interview to promote a book, but I don't see anything in here about actual research. It's one big *citation needed as far as I'm concerned.
posted by runcibleshaw at 2:27 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by runcibleshaw at 2:27 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
I skimmed down to the bottom of the comments instead of reading them. I guess I'll never know how many folks before me said they'd done the same thing.
posted by davejay at 3:21 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by davejay at 3:21 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
> stillnocturnal:
I will admit it probably helps that I am a very, very fast reader, which is one of the reasons I *hate* videos. So inefficient."
Same here. That, coupled with tinnitus issues, is why I have a VERY limited urge to consume podcasts, and less so with audiobooks.
posted by Samizdata at 3:36 PM on August 29, 2018
I will admit it probably helps that I am a very, very fast reader, which is one of the reasons I *hate* videos. So inefficient."
Same here. That, coupled with tinnitus issues, is why I have a VERY limited urge to consume podcasts, and less so with audiobooks.
posted by Samizdata at 3:36 PM on August 29, 2018
I know this is a short interview to promote a book, but I don't see anything in here about actual research. It's one big *citation needed as far as I'm concerned.
Articles about books rarely include footnotes or citations. The book itself includes 34 pages of notes and citations.
posted by Lexica at 4:15 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Articles about books rarely include footnotes or citations. The book itself includes 34 pages of notes and citations.
posted by Lexica at 4:15 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
I skim way more than I'd like because of work requirements, not the internet. I am expected to spend my time on useful things and people are neither concise in their prose nor parsimonious in who they CC. I am not the first person in the business world to pick up this habit and, despite what I thought when I started out my career, it is not a sign of being a bad reader.
Scientific papers in my field are literally written not to be read from start to finish. For me it's: Abstract, intro, abstract again, conclusion, figures then skim methods only if I don't trust the conclusion. Study everything except the abstract and intro if I want to repeat it.
I also remember an interview with James Burke ages ago where he was asked about some grant he got to read for a year. Produce nothing, just read. It sounded awesome and the interviewer said "So you read 2000 books?" or something like that. Burke laughed. He explained he actually didn't get to "read" in the normal enjoyable sense, you sit in a library and look at chapters and dip in so you think you know the thesis. Only rarely would he be able to justify reading a book start to finish (after skimming.)
So obviously I'm unconvinced it's a digital phenomena. It's interesting for me to see people self-report that they experience this problem personally--I read novels despite skimming all the time and sort of do a different mindset for internet-skimming than for internet-reading. Personally internet-skimming has replaced flipping through channels hoping to find something that catches my attention. So it'd be break even if it weren't for the damn appeal of video games cutting into quality reading time. :(
posted by mark k at 8:30 PM on August 29, 2018
Scientific papers in my field are literally written not to be read from start to finish. For me it's: Abstract, intro, abstract again, conclusion, figures then skim methods only if I don't trust the conclusion. Study everything except the abstract and intro if I want to repeat it.
I also remember an interview with James Burke ages ago where he was asked about some grant he got to read for a year. Produce nothing, just read. It sounded awesome and the interviewer said "So you read 2000 books?" or something like that. Burke laughed. He explained he actually didn't get to "read" in the normal enjoyable sense, you sit in a library and look at chapters and dip in so you think you know the thesis. Only rarely would he be able to justify reading a book start to finish (after skimming.)
So obviously I'm unconvinced it's a digital phenomena. It's interesting for me to see people self-report that they experience this problem personally--I read novels despite skimming all the time and sort of do a different mindset for internet-skimming than for internet-reading. Personally internet-skimming has replaced flipping through channels hoping to find something that catches my attention. So it'd be break even if it weren't for the damn appeal of video games cutting into quality reading time. :(
posted by mark k at 8:30 PM on August 29, 2018
Like potrezbie, I've always skimmed fiction, since I started reading it. Most fiction holds your hand quite a bit. Actually, most properly structured books do, and that's part of properly structuring a book. Obsessing over every word is for genres like poetry and philosophy, where the *author* also has to obsess about every word.
I can only hope that this article is intended to be ironic, because it's a short-form hot take that really could use some substance. There are actual problems surrounding this issue, but this is bad pop-sci (and it's under 1000 words, which is funny at least in this case . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 10:18 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
I can only hope that this article is intended to be ironic, because it's a short-form hot take that really could use some substance. There are actual problems surrounding this issue, but this is bad pop-sci (and it's under 1000 words, which is funny at least in this case . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 10:18 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
There is something mildly ironic about a brief interview on a subject the author wrote a book about being posted on the web as if it covered the details of the argument being made, allowing us to "skim" the outlines instead of engaging with it more fully, but the deeper irony I suggest is in the assumption that the interview does contain all one needs to know about the argument in order to judge and dismiss it.
Even in the interview the claim isn't that the internet created skimming or that skimming is objectionable in all instances or that people never skim works on paper, but that the expectations and mechanisms of reading are being reformed in ways that potentially make trying not to skim and actually focus on works more difficult. Whether the book provides sufficient evidence of that in scientific terms, or in that old school way at least provides a compelling enough argument to make further examination of the subject seem wise for any reader I can't say as I haven't read the book, but anecdotally I find the outline of the premise of interest because it does fit my experience of not only what and how I read, but what I see happening to information exchanges on the web more generally.
That doesn't make the argument right or provide explanation of what, if anything is changing, but it fits my experience of there being something different going on, so I'm open to reading more about the ideas in hopes of learning more. If that isn't the case for others, that's cool, but some of the defense of skimming here does make me wonder if this isn't already a lost cause since it sure sounds like some are saying there isn't any reason not to skim pretty much everything, which is so far from my belief as to be an insurmountable difference of values.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:30 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
Even in the interview the claim isn't that the internet created skimming or that skimming is objectionable in all instances or that people never skim works on paper, but that the expectations and mechanisms of reading are being reformed in ways that potentially make trying not to skim and actually focus on works more difficult. Whether the book provides sufficient evidence of that in scientific terms, or in that old school way at least provides a compelling enough argument to make further examination of the subject seem wise for any reader I can't say as I haven't read the book, but anecdotally I find the outline of the premise of interest because it does fit my experience of not only what and how I read, but what I see happening to information exchanges on the web more generally.
That doesn't make the argument right or provide explanation of what, if anything is changing, but it fits my experience of there being something different going on, so I'm open to reading more about the ideas in hopes of learning more. If that isn't the case for others, that's cool, but some of the defense of skimming here does make me wonder if this isn't already a lost cause since it sure sounds like some are saying there isn't any reason not to skim pretty much everything, which is so far from my belief as to be an insurmountable difference of values.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:30 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm also unconvinced that skimming is entirely a digital phenomenon. Thanks to the magic of pressed-clay as a medium, we know that ephemeral text likely dates to the origins of the written word itself, and I highly doubt that every line of every invoice and catalog was faithfully read. For certain classes of the 19th century, familiarity with the different modes and media of language including newspapers, calling cards, business correspondence, personal correspondence, advertising, advertisements, invoices, legal briefs, and political rhetoric was routine. (Arguably the first "multimedia message" was the carte de visite.)
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:53 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:53 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
it sure sounds like some are saying there isn't any reason not to skim pretty much everything
I'm not getting that from most of these comments; I'd argue rather that if you're a strong reader reading in your native language, there are different kinds of reading requiring differing levels of engagement.
If I'm reading a technical manual I'm skimming for the information I need. If I'm reading a pulp novel or a newspaper I'm skimming because I'm a fast reader and these formats have simple sentences that lend themselves to easy comprehension. If I'm reading literary fiction or poetry or theory I devour every word, because it might be quite important.
Websites can go either way, but trend more toward the skimming side.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:02 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm not getting that from most of these comments; I'd argue rather that if you're a strong reader reading in your native language, there are different kinds of reading requiring differing levels of engagement.
If I'm reading a technical manual I'm skimming for the information I need. If I'm reading a pulp novel or a newspaper I'm skimming because I'm a fast reader and these formats have simple sentences that lend themselves to easy comprehension. If I'm reading literary fiction or poetry or theory I devour every word, because it might be quite important.
Websites can go either way, but trend more toward the skimming side.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:02 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
If that isn't the case for others, that's cool, but some of the defense of skimming here does make me wonder if this isn't already a lost cause since it sure sounds like some are saying there isn't any reason not to skim pretty much everything, which is so far from my belief as to be an insurmountable difference of values.
Different media and modes of language involve different rhetorical structures which are designed for different kinds of engagement. Many of these have been obsessively analyzed and described by linguists. The assumption that the existence of short ephemeral forms trains us out of understanding extended prose needs a fair bit of support given that both have existed for centuries. The exact same claims have been made and found lacking over audio-visual media and modes vs. print starting with the invention of radio.
Generally I think that human cognitive wiring for language is inherently multi-modal (but unfortunately not multi-lingual unless you're raised in the right environment). Otherwise, we wouldn't understand written language in any capacity.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:49 AM on August 30, 2018
Different media and modes of language involve different rhetorical structures which are designed for different kinds of engagement. Many of these have been obsessively analyzed and described by linguists. The assumption that the existence of short ephemeral forms trains us out of understanding extended prose needs a fair bit of support given that both have existed for centuries. The exact same claims have been made and found lacking over audio-visual media and modes vs. print starting with the invention of radio.
Generally I think that human cognitive wiring for language is inherently multi-modal (but unfortunately not multi-lingual unless you're raised in the right environment). Otherwise, we wouldn't understand written language in any capacity.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:49 AM on August 30, 2018
Snark:
One of my major worries is that when you lose the novel, you lose the ability to go into another person’s perspective.
Oh, if only there were other literary forms that include shifts in perspective!
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:06 AM on August 30, 2018
One of my major worries is that when you lose the novel, you lose the ability to go into another person’s perspective.
Oh, if only there were other literary forms that include shifts in perspective!
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:06 AM on August 30, 2018
The assumption that the existence of short ephemeral forms trains us out of understanding extended prose needs a fair bit of support given that both have existed for centuries.
Agreed. It would be ludicrous to claim that everything one reads needed to be read with highly focused attention. Context and personal interest will necessarily play a role in determining how we read anything since we, at the least, would need to skim works to figure out which to delve into more deeply.
The interest for me is in the claim of personal change in attention, nothing new I grant, but still an open question given the seeming societal shifts in valuation and production of writing. Postman's argument was, if I recall correctly, more about shifts in social valuation, what is deemed important, how it is presented, and how, through that, we understand it and the larger world.
From my perspective this is a continuing avenue of change, where and how ideas are framed and who is getting read is making significant changes to at least some areas of culture and evaluation, some seemingly for the good, others perhaps not so much. The question of whether this is in turn actually affecting the manner in which people are able to engage with the ideas then is in whether its just an issue of what is most readily seen, who is gaining the most notice or if some forms of engagement are actually fading or being made less relevant due to the demand for headline, emoji, reaction gif, kinds of thought and response online.
When immediate reaction and short summary response become prized does that drive out some ability to focus as much as it seems to drive out more in depth works from notice or are these things not related and its more a matter of different people driving the conversation who didn't have the access before? (Many other perspectives on this are also possible of course, that is just one potential avenue of change.) I strongly doubt it's an either/or question, but have some suspicion that foregrounding shallow reading and emotional response as the dominant form of discourse does cause some harm to more nuanced and contemplative response as it places greater urgency on responding at once to keep pace with events and brings the reader's initial feelings on a subject to the fore, making concentrated reflection more difficult.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:40 AM on August 30, 2018
Agreed. It would be ludicrous to claim that everything one reads needed to be read with highly focused attention. Context and personal interest will necessarily play a role in determining how we read anything since we, at the least, would need to skim works to figure out which to delve into more deeply.
The interest for me is in the claim of personal change in attention, nothing new I grant, but still an open question given the seeming societal shifts in valuation and production of writing. Postman's argument was, if I recall correctly, more about shifts in social valuation, what is deemed important, how it is presented, and how, through that, we understand it and the larger world.
From my perspective this is a continuing avenue of change, where and how ideas are framed and who is getting read is making significant changes to at least some areas of culture and evaluation, some seemingly for the good, others perhaps not so much. The question of whether this is in turn actually affecting the manner in which people are able to engage with the ideas then is in whether its just an issue of what is most readily seen, who is gaining the most notice or if some forms of engagement are actually fading or being made less relevant due to the demand for headline, emoji, reaction gif, kinds of thought and response online.
When immediate reaction and short summary response become prized does that drive out some ability to focus as much as it seems to drive out more in depth works from notice or are these things not related and its more a matter of different people driving the conversation who didn't have the access before? (Many other perspectives on this are also possible of course, that is just one potential avenue of change.) I strongly doubt it's an either/or question, but have some suspicion that foregrounding shallow reading and emotional response as the dominant form of discourse does cause some harm to more nuanced and contemplative response as it places greater urgency on responding at once to keep pace with events and brings the reader's initial feelings on a subject to the fore, making concentrated reflection more difficult.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:40 AM on August 30, 2018
I'm not getting that from most of these comments; I'd argue rather that if you're a strong reader reading in your native language, there are different kinds of reading requiring differing levels of engagement.
It was only a few that sorta gave me that vibe, but I'll assume your take is correct since that seems to me to be an unimpeachable attitude to take.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:46 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
It was only a few that sorta gave me that vibe, but I'll assume your take is correct since that seems to me to be an unimpeachable attitude to take.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:46 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Re videos, the 2x speed option on youtube and most media players is so useful.
posted by lucidium at 11:22 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by lucidium at 11:22 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
One cultural difference makes reading on phones less conducive to sustained attention. I read books on my phone all the time, and bad as people are about interrupting when I am reading a book, they are much worse when I am reading a phone. The supposition is always that I am unoccupied and available to anyone for anything.
posted by ckridge at 4:33 PM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by ckridge at 4:33 PM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
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