In reading, we are both scientists and poets.
Maryanne WolfRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Digital technology has both positive and negative effects on our cognitive abilities, and it's essential to study and address these impacts.
In this quote, Maryanne Wolf highlights the dual nature of digital technology, presenting it as both a valuable resource and a potentially harmful influence on our cognitive functions, particularly concerning memory and attention. She emphasizes the importance of societal awareness and evidence-based research to advocate for better design practices among technology creators, ensuring they consider the psychological effects of their innovations.
Themes
Digital TechnologyCognitive ImpactMemoryAttentionResearch
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about the effects of smartphone use on students' attention spans.
More from Maryanne Wolf
All quotes →The acquisition of literacy is one of the most important epigenetic achievements of Homo sapiens. To our knowledge, no other species ever acquired it.
Maryanne WolfRead
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.
Maryanne WolfRead
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.
Maryanne WolfRead
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.
Maryanne WolfRead
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.
Maryanne WolfRead
Similar quotes
Hard numbers tell an important story; user stats and sales numbers will always be key metrics. But every day, your users are sharing a huge amount of qualitative data, too - and a lot of companies either don't know how or forget to act on it.
Stewart ButterfieldRead
Until computers and robots make quantum advances, they basically remain adding machines: capable only of doing things in which all the variables are controlled and predictable.
Michio KakuRead
Engineers and entrepreneurs are fundamentally dissatisfied with the way the world is and want to make it better. There are so many things you could do with technology if you can match it up with real problems.
Martin CooperRead
[The] dynamics of computational artifacts extend beyond the interface narrowly defined, to relations of people with each other and to the place of computing in their ongoing activities. System design, it follows, must include not only the design of innovative technologies, but their artful integration with the rest of the social and material world.
Lucy SuchmanRead
There's an assumption that women don't start companies that earn more than X amount of dollars, or that have more than X amount of users, and Bumble is now really growing into one of the main players if you look at all the mainstream social-media platforms.
Whitney Wolfe HerdRead
You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard - in other words a netbook - will be the mainstream on that.
Bill GatesRead