There's an old rule in neuroscience that does not alter with age: use it or lose it. It is a very hopeful principle when applied to critical thought in the reading brain because it implies choice.
Interpretation
The principle emphasizes the importance of engaging the brain to maintain and enhance cognitive functions.
The quote by Maryanne Wolf highlights the idea that mental engagement is crucial for maintaining and improving one's cognitive abilities, regardless of age. It underscores the empowering notion that individuals have the ability to influence their mental acuity through active participation and critical thinking, suggesting that with regular use of our cognitive faculties, we can foster growth and prevent decline in our mental capabilities.
In practice
In a seminar about lifelong learning, one might say, 'As Maryanne Wolf pointed out, there's an old rule in neuroscience: use it or lose it.'
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.
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.
Thus, when the lamp that lighted The traveller at first goes out, He feels awhile benighted, And looks around in fear and doubt. But soon, the prospect clearing, By cloudless starlight on he treads, And thinks no lamp so cheering As that light which Heaven sheds.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
Oh, to have “the word of Christ” always dwelling inside of us;-in the memory, never forgotten; in the heart, always loved; in the understanding, really grasped; with all the powers and passions of the mind fully submitted to its control!
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Depression can be the sand that makes the pearl. Most of my best _x000D_ work came out of it.
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