Truth in Texting
I tried to say, “I’m a functional adult,” but my phone changed it to
“fictional adult,” and I feel like that’s more accurate.
@xplodingunicorn (james breakwell)study conducted at Stanford Univer-
sity indicate that close literary reading
in particular gives your brain a major
workout. MRI scans of people who are
deep into a Jane Austen novel showed
an increase in blood flowing to areas
of the brain that control both cognitive
studied children ages eight to ten who
were below-average readers. One hun-
dred hours of remedial reading classes
significantly improved the quality of
their brains’ white matter—the tis-
sue that carries signals between areas
of gray matter, where information is
processed. The researchers’ conclu-
sion: The brains of these children had
begun to rewire themselves in ways
that could benefit the entire brain,
not only the reading-centric temporal
cortex.
The ability to read closely is some-
thing that needs to be nurtured. In her
new book, Reader, Come Home, Wolf
notes that even she, as someone who
reads for a living, has found her abil-
ity to concentrate on the written word
fading as more of what we read is on
a screen. “Unfortunately, this form
of reading is rarely continuous, sus-
tained, or concentrated,” she writes.
That sets up a vicious cycle: Without
the sustained exercise of our reading
“muscles,” the brain loses its ability to
control the intricate processes that al-
low us to read deeply.
Of course, there’s an easy solution:
Turn off your phone and your com-
puter, set aside a good hour or two—
and just read.Reader’s Digest has published Select
Editions anthologies since 1950. From
the beginning (when the series was
known as Condensed Books), they have
featured top-notch
contemporary fiction
by authors such as Lee
Child and Nicholas
Sparks. To order the
newest volume, go to
selecteditions.com/
rdmar19.
try this brain food
and executive function, as opposed
to the more limited effects that come
from more leisurely reading.
What if you are (or someone you
know is) a poor, or even a dyslexic,
reader who feels as if you’ll never be
able to read enough to reap these ben-
efits? A book can fix that problem too!
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University
Reader’s Digest The Genius Section
124 march 2019 | rd.commatthew^cohen