The attention span of children may be one of the main reasons why an immersion in on-screen reading is so engaging, and it may also be why digital reading may ultimately prove antithetical to the long-in-development, reflective nature of the expert reading brain as we know it.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the potential impact of digital reading on children's attention spans and expert reading skills.
Maryanne Wolf emphasizes the dual nature of digital reading for children: while it captivates their attention, it may inadvertently hinder the development of deep, reflective reading skills. This tension between engagement and cognitive growth raises important questions about how technology shapes our reading habits and mental processes.
In practice
In a discussion on children's learning habits, this quote can illustrate the potential risks of technology in education.
Digital technology can be a great resource, but it can also be a pernicious one, so it's how we, as a society, really study the cognitive impact of that and use evidence-based research to go after the technology designers to do a better job of dealing with the problems of memory and attention we are seeing.
In reading, we are both scientists and poets.
The acquisition of literacy is one of the most important epigenetic achievements of Homo sapiens. To our knowledge, no other species ever acquired it.
The quality of our reading is not only an index of the quality of our thought; it is our best-known route to developing whole new pathways in the cerebral evolution of our species.
There's a richness that reading gives you, an opportunity to probe more than any other medium I know of. Reading is about not being content with the surface.
There's no question that our children's attention and memory is changing when they are reading too long, too much, too early on digital screens.
Schooling is what happens inside the wall of the school, some of which is educational. Education happens everywhere, and it happens from the moment a child is born-some say before-until it dies.
I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don't write to protect them. It's far too late for that. I write to give them weapons-in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.
I was on the whole considerably discouraged by my school days... It is not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the very beginning of the race.
Do not be afraid to ask for help. Nobody gets through college on their own.
It is possible to take a population of students who are failing and whose schools are failing them, who are being written off as not being college material, and if they have the right support, they can all go to college and succeed.
The foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.
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