Reading brain, where art thou?
Print is the new digital
In this bookless world, there is no such thing as a page-turner. A page makes no sense to a ‘digital’ brain.
THE journey of a lifetime starts with the turning of a page, says human scientist Rachel Anders. Try telling that to the online scanners and skimmers. They live in a triangulated world: zero-minute read, three-minute read and five-minute read. Some, of course, get to the bottom of the page, but are few and far between. In this bookless world, there is no such thing as a page-turner. A page makes no sense to a “digital” brain. One page is as good as another. The millennials are wired up so differently. Their brain circuitry is best suited for a world where there is an information deluge. Long reads no longer work, it seems. The digitals are a generation that is in a hurry. They touch only to go. Shakespeare has a piece of advice: “Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.”
And they take this habit to the world of print. Some experts — neuroscientists who track the digital generation — say this results in a whole new way of reading. In fact, they note a clash of reading tradition. A clash of civilisation, you may say. The digitals dip while the baby boomers dive. Unhappily, the dip isn’t too deep to get the context of the texts. It must be mentioned: meaning isn’t just in the lines; it is also in between them. Because the words morph into sentences, then into chapters and verses.
We recommend Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf to such reluctant readers. Wolf is a cognitive neuroscientist and she knows all about the beauty of the reading process. In her view, we are not programmed to read. Reading needs a tug, a nudge or even a push to kick-start the habit. This is why those who are read to in bed laugh all the way to the library. And to Kinokuniya too. Reading teaches us not only about cruel stepmothers and dashing strangers — as Cinderella discovered — but it also gets our brains wired for learning one hundred and one other things. Reading is mind-forged because the brain, we are told, has a plasticity that is herculean.
Skimmers and scanners do not only trouble cognitive neuroscientists; they trouble this and other newspapers too. We have a confession to make: the three-minute or fiveminute read that you see on our digital paper is convention-driven. We would have preferred not to so label them. To us, everything is a must read. Short read, long read is not a world we like to inhabit. Truth be told: the labels are too apologetic for our liking. Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik summed up the importance of reading very well: a reading nation is a great nation. We cannot agree with this more.
The New Straits Times as an old mainstream newspaper has a national worry: what is the future of reading in Malaysia? For years — 174 long years to be exact — we have promoted the reading habit. We shall not be “googled” out. Not after all these years. Let us say it again: print is the new digital.