Marianne Wolfe
Appearances
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
And that new circuit connects all these amazing parts of the brain, cognition, language, perception, memory, but also feeling, affect. So we build this circuitry. And then over time, we actually have the capacity to elaborate it. It becomes ever more sophisticated.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
And when it becomes sophisticated, it begins to have a circuit I call the circuit for deep reading and figuring out how the new information meets or does not meet the information stored already. Most important to me are the three big deep reading processes. Empathy.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Sean, it takes time, but the brain connects the ability to leave, really leave the page and enter the lives and thoughts and feelings of others who are completely different. Whether it's a completely different historical epoch or a different culture, religion, etc. You are entering that life. That's empathy. Next and probably never more important than this moment is critical analysis.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
We have a frontal lobe dance in which we say, ah, this is what is meant. Oh, no, I refute this because it's not true. So we have this evaluation process, but it takes time. And the end is a real sense, whether it's true or not. misinformation, or worst of all, especially these days, intentional disinformation.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Now, the third deep reading process is one that doesn't always happen, and that's this almost like sanctuary feeling of being so immersed that, and this is where the novelist Proust comes in in my work, he said, the heart of reading is when we enter the wisdom of the author and go beyond it to discover our own wisdom, our own insights, our own best thoughts.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Most of the people who are not reading books aren't reading at that level. But from my perspective as an English literature major, they're not just skimming the information and getting just the gist. They're skimming the opportunity to enter another life.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
No, you ask it because, and I have answered it, because it is on the top of everyone's mind. I love audiobooks, and I especially like them for commuting or for, and I work with a lot of individuals with dyslexia. That's one of the best ways they can get information. Now, is it the same as reading at the immersive level? For some, it is. But by and large, it does skip what is called reading.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Comprehension monitoring. That's when we're reading and we are actually checking ourselves, checking what we have missed, what we have skipped. And in the audio version, by and large, we don't go back.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
There are many other differences, but I'll name one in particular that's important for development and for especially children and individuals over time, and that is the palpable kinesthetic nature of the book because it aids spatial memory. So, Sean, here's a book. I could find, oh, it's left side, lower, about a third of the way through. I have a spatial memory that we aren't even aware of.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
So there's all these extra, if you will, affordances when we have the physical printed book.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
I'm mostly worried about the young. Junot Diaz said, it's the closest thing to telepathy humans ever get. And that's an amazing, amazingly beautiful, almost mind-boggling opportunity that goes missing. It just plain goes missing when you do not ever understand what that means. that sense of interiority, that sense of immersion can give you. I'll give you the tiniest example.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Last night, okay, I probably have COVID. I feel really rotten.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
So I'm thinking, you know, oh, no, I feel bad. And I have to go talk to Sean in the morning. I have to have a voice. I'm feeling miserable, self-pitying. And then I think, how can I cheer myself up?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
I read a half a book. And did I feel better? Yes. I feel good enough to come on your show.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
We have to model love. Love? We have to model love of what happens when we are entering that state. And I think part of the problem is that we give up before we try. Great books increase the humanity of our world. And I think we are succumbing to the idea that everything's efficient, everything has to be done quickly, and we have to go with whatever the kids want.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
How would we let our next generation just go down that slippery slope into the shallows? That's what Nicholas Carr and my colleagues in Norway call, you know, shallow reading.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Did she? Well, good for her. It's not just our young, it's all of us. And when I said model, I wasn't kidding. Parents have to model. But that requires some tough things on the parents and teachers. You know, you're going against the tide. But if you don't, we're going to have a... What is that...
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
What was that movie where everyone, the humans, they had given all of their tasks to the robots, and finally they were just these obese creatures? What was that?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Wow, look at that! We're all going to be WALL-Es! You know, we're going to be cerebral WALL-Es out there! Don't let it happen!
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Oh my goodness, probably somewhere between 50 and...
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
I have a reading life. I learned to bookend my day, which means I begin with a book and I end with a book.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
You know, the repercussions of the digital culture are such that we never knew what I considered the... pernicious effects of the kind of efficiency that the digital screen gives us. So the book is the antithesis of the get it done and over with mode. Books have become like vinyl, you know, for though that Emily Dickinson would say for that select society, that shouldn't be the case.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
So, Sean, I'm going to answer in two modes. I'm going to answer as a cognitive neuroscientist who studies the reading brain. Okay. And I'm going to answer as a former English literature major. So I'm going to first start with the cognitive neuroscience. The reality is that no one on this earth was meant to read. The brain had to build up a new circuit.