In The Guardian article “Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound,” Maryanne Wolf explains how students have switched their reading style to skim through text instead of actually reading it. Students are struggling to fully comprehend the deep meaning of complex and academic texts. Technology has created a desire for people to live in a fast paced, instant gratification world. Reading deeply and using critical thinking skills has become obsolete, as people attempt to learn things quickly. The shift has also revealed to researchers from different universities that students are losing important skills such as the ability to inference, have empathy, and take on another perspective. These concepts are all critical life skills and are sought after by today’s employers. Students who read text digitally demonstrate weaker comprehension and analysis of the same text when compared to students who read the text on paper. Finally, Wolf covers an old rule that one must use their brain, or they lose some of their ability and intellect.
Children of all ages are using technology. The digital platform varies for everyone, yet the underlying trend is all the same, whether it be an iPad, kindle, or another smart device babies, toddlers, school age to college age individuals almost always have access to the internet and digital content. Parents and caretakers use these devices to distract and occupy time for a child. Researchers from Haifa University have studied and observed young students from elementary school to high school, and their discovery is that there is a lack of understanding and the development of empathy in students as young as fourth and fifth grade. This difficulty is directly tied to screen reading.
Ziming Liu from San Jose State elaborates on what he learned due to his research on skim reading in Z or F patterns. The process of skim reading in a Z pattern where you just scan a line and then split down and read across again in the shape of a Z. Reading spot words reduces the deep complex thought processes that develop with traditional reading. Students skimming in a Z pattern are far more likely to summarize in an incorrect order. The F reading pattern is one where you read the first couple lines, skip a couple and then just read down the side reading whatever words catch your interest. This results with decreased comprehension around complex text and leads a decrease in one’s ability to perceive others’ feelings and critically analyze the information and situations. Digital distractions and text have created issues with deep comprehension and reasoning of an information. While skim reading is much faster it is far less efficient as shown by research from Sherry Turkle, a MIT scholar, explains the process of innovation in our ever-changing world. “We do not err as a society when we innovate, but we ignore what we disrupt or diminish while innovating.” Turkle is explains how society has innovated access to content to learn things faster, however in that attempt for quick learning society has lost some of the foundational skills of life that people to learn at a young age. These skills set the stage for a sound and literate society.
English scholar Mark Edmundson explains that college students are trying to avoid reading the long 19th and 20th century texts as students lack the patience to read them. He argues that due to the large number of students with this impatience society will slowly move away. The issue with this impatience and the lack of understanding it can cause problems when it comes to the important documents we deal with like wills, contracts, and confusing polls at the voting booth. These are important aspects of society, and all things people encounter at some point of life ranging from a loved one’s death, a new job, a new house, or voting for their government.
In the end of the article Wolf goes over the importance of using the knowledge we possess. Literacy is a process that has taken thousands of years to create and needs and environment that allows for the continued evolution to meet the needs of the current environment. The next generation of our society must become bi-literate individuals who can use digital technology and traditional texts of our past, present, and future to ensure that the good of society is continued and preserved and not rely on the mass amounts of potentially false and useless information at a surface level. Knowledge is not just lost due to advanced aging; it is lost due an aging individuals reduce ability to intensely use their brain process new and complex information. The brain is a muscle the more someone uses their brain the stronger it gets. Wolf uses the words “use it or lose it,” People will retain knowledge for as long as they keep using it, only once it is not important and they ignore the knowledge will they begin to forget.
Works Cited
Wolf, Maryanne. “Skim Reading Is the New Normal. The Effect on Society Is Profound.” The Guardian, 25 Aug. 2018.
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