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Originally published at www.jotform.com.
Reading is trending, notes Aytekin Tank, Editor of The Startup and JotForm.
The internet’s taken something uncool and given it a makeover.
Reading is the new kale: worth stomaching because it’s Good For Us.
So
good, in fact, that we should do as much of it as we can. More is more!
Everyone should be reading one book a week — no, wait, one book a day.
That’s why Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are successful, after all.
The more we read, the smarter we’ll get.
But where to find the time? We have to do it faster, faster, and faster still!...
As the professor and eye tracking researcher Keith Rayner
explains, techniques like simultaneously reading large segments of the
page aren’t biologically or psychologically possible, due to the
limitation of our foveal viewing area.
An entire page can’t be read at once. Zig-zagging down one page doesn’t work. The human eye just isn’t up to it...
And according to UCLA psychologist Patricia Greenfield,
when the brain skims, less attention and time is allocated to slower,
more time-consuming processes, like inference, critical analysis and
empathy.
In other words, we aren’t giving ourselves enough time to grasp complexity or develop opinions of our own...
Why do we read, anyway?
Consider three types of reading:
- The first is passive. Scrolling on Facebook, flicking through a magazine in a doctor’s room, tapping away on Twitter. This reading happens to you.
- The second is practical. Reading for a purpose. Because we want — or need — to learn something. At school, college, or for personal improvement.
- The third is pleasurable. Not just fiction or magazines or fluffy escapism. Reading for pleasure doesn’t have a category: it’s subjective. It happens when something makes you tick: an article, a novel, an autobiography.
Reading because you want to, not because you feel you should.
