0:00

I'm Elise Hu. And I'm Josh

0:02

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0:04

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0:06

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0:31

Hey, it is Ezra. We're taking a couple

0:33

days off for Thanksgiving, but we have here one of

0:35

my absolute favorite episodes of the show recorded

0:38

in November, 2022 about

0:40

how reading changes the brain, about

0:43

how the ways in which we absorb information

0:45

shifts how we understand it, what we can do with

0:48

it, and how we think going forward.

0:51

This was recorded a bit ago. I think it is only

0:53

more relevant now. We'll be back with a new

0:55

episode on Friday.

1:00

I'm Ezra Klein. This

1:01

is The Ezra Klein Show.

1:19

Here is the thesis of this conversation

1:21

put simply. How we

1:24

read is as deserving of

1:26

attention as what we read, maybe even more so.

1:29

And how we read, it has changed dramatically

1:33

in just a few short years. And

1:35

that means our minds, the way we think

1:37

and interpret and reflect on the world,

1:39

they've changed too, and at stunning speed. Literacy

1:43

is an experiment humankind ran on itself that

1:45

we ran on ourselves pretty recently, actually.

1:48

And it has had remarkable, wondrous results.

1:51

It has changed us and it has changed

1:53

our societies. In recent decades,

1:55

the

1:56

shift to thinking amidst

2:00

a cacophony of digital

2:02

information and dialogue and text.

2:05

That is another experiment we're running on ourselves.

2:07

And it is also a seismic one, and

2:10

it is ongoing, and it is early,

2:12

and we don't know how it will

2:14

turn out. We don't. But

2:17

people are trying to figure that out. Marian Wolfe is

2:19

a professor at UCLA's School of Education

2:21

and Information Studies, and she's one

2:23

of the world's leading experts on how reading

2:25

works in, and even more importantly, how

2:28

it works on the brain, how it changes

2:30

the brain. She's the author of Proust

2:33

and the Squid, the Story and Science of the Reading

2:35

Brain, and of Reader Come Home, the

2:37

Reading Brain in a Digital World, among

2:39

other books. And

2:41

don't worry, she's not someone who

2:43

thinks we can or should turn

2:46

back the clock to try to return to some kind of pre-digital

2:48

reading utopia. That's

2:51

not possible, nor was it a utopia, and

2:53

I'm not that person either. My whole career, my whole

2:56

life is built on digital text. Her

2:59

idea is something different, that

3:01

we need to understand what

3:03

different kinds of reading do to our minds,

3:06

and that we need to develop in ourselves and our

3:09

children what she calls a biliterate

3:11

brain. And as you'll

3:13

hear here, she's just a lovely person

3:15

to listen to and to think alongside.

3:19

As always, if you have guest suggestions, feedback,

3:21

things you think we should read, my email

3:23

is ezrakleinshow at nytimes.com.

3:26

Marianne

3:30

Wolfe, welcome to the show.

3:33

Oh, what a pleasure it is to be able

3:35

to talk to you, not just write letters

3:37

to the New York Times in reaction to

3:39

your essays.

3:40

Write

3:42

a lot of angry screeds, that

3:44

damn Ezra. No anger, actually,

3:47

total appreciation for the essay

3:49

you wrote in August. The medium really

3:52

is the message.

3:53

Well, I appreciate that, and we're going to talk about

3:55

McLuhan and the mediums are the messages, but

3:58

I want to start here. You

4:00

argue in Reader Come Home that

4:03

reading is a quote, a natural process.

4:06

Tell me what you mean by that.

4:08

Well, one of the striking

4:11

insights that I have, if you will, a tiny

4:13

epiphany, when I first

4:15

began to write about reading, which was in 2007, it

4:19

was a book called Proust and the Squid,

4:22

The Story and Science of the Reading Brain,

4:25

I realized that

4:27

there was nothing in

4:29

the brain, not a single gene,

4:32

not a single region that

4:34

was specifically there

4:36

for reading. That's very unlike

4:39

all the other processes that are actually

4:41

incorporated in reading, language,

4:44

vision, cognition, affect. If

4:47

you think about language, that is

4:49

a natural process. There's a genetic

4:52

program in which it unfolds.

4:54

There's nothing like that for reading. We

4:57

were never meant to read.

5:00

But what is amazing is

5:02

that the brain does have this

5:06

almost semi-miraculous capacity

5:09

to make new circuits

5:12

within itself using

5:14

the processes that are

5:17

genetically there, but

5:19

in new ways. So what the brain

5:21

has is the capacity to make

5:24

novel circuits. And

5:26

the invention, the human

5:29

invention of reading required

5:31

a new circuit. So

5:34

the brain very gradually

5:36

learned how to connect

5:39

parts that were there for other reasons

5:42

and made a new circuit that

5:44

became the first underlying

5:47

network for reading very

5:50

simple symbols 6,000 years ago. But

5:54

it was never the case that

5:56

we were meant to read, which has real

5:59

implications.

5:59

Now, Ezra, the reason

6:02

why it is essential to understand

6:05

it's unnatural is that

6:07

that circuit that is formed,

6:10

that novel circuit, is

6:13

plastic. And that's what

6:15

makes it very different from

6:17

the other wonderful processes

6:20

we were given by nature.

6:22

Well, one of the things I want to get at

6:24

here before we get into plasticity

6:26

and flexibility,

6:29

but without getting too deep into the neuroscience,

6:31

one of the things that your book emphasizes

6:34

and that you convinced me of is

6:36

that reading is a very misleading

6:39

term because it's singular.

6:42

And you make this point that reading is not one thing

6:45

at all. It's many things.

6:48

So tell me a bit about that multiplicity.

6:50

So I will return a little

6:53

back to neuroscience only

6:55

as a way of scaffolding what I'm

6:57

going to say. And that

6:59

is when we first learn

7:01

to read, we have this most

7:04

basic circuit. It's just

7:06

putting together the visual

7:08

processes that identify a letter

7:11

or a character with a

7:13

word, with what we know about the word.

7:15

So it's putting vision and language together. That's

7:18

one form of reading. That's a very basic

7:21

form of what we could call decoding. But

7:24

from then on, according

7:27

to our environment, we begin

7:29

to elaborate that circuit. And

7:31

so we become prepared, if

7:33

you will, to read in

7:36

totally different ways from

7:38

that very simplified

7:41

form

7:41

of reading, which we call decoding.

7:42

And the more we

7:45

know, the more we add

7:48

to that circuit. So the more

7:50

we have as background knowledge, we

7:52

are preparing that circuit to

7:55

grow in ever more sophisticated

7:57

ways. Now the most...

8:00

interesting aspect for me about

8:03

reading is that it's

8:05

continuous, it's evolving,

8:08

it's based on everything that went before,

8:11

or it

8:12

can be a very primitive

8:15

way of using that decoding circuit so

8:18

that we just are skimming

8:20

the top, if you will, of the processes

8:23

and we get the information and we

8:25

have a very basic content. But

8:28

if over time we have

8:31

begun to elaborate the spring

8:33

so that it includes deep

8:35

reading, the

8:37

unnatural apex

8:40

of the achievement of reading is what

8:42

deep reading provides and that

8:45

means there are different levels

8:48

in which we can participate in

8:50

the text. We can use

8:53

our ability to take on

8:55

another

8:55

perspective

8:58

to read in a whole different way. We

9:01

are entering almost like the theory

9:03

of mind of another

9:06

and also their feelings. This

9:08

is a totally different form of reading

9:11

than the one that we are talking

9:13

about when we are saying we read

9:16

for information. Now I

9:18

can go and we'll go further into

9:21

what's even, if you will, deeper than

9:23

critical analysis and empathy but

9:25

the accrual of

9:28

all these more sophisticated processes

9:31

means

9:32

that we can read at multiple

9:35

levels. We can read with our

9:37

attention simply skimming

9:39

the surface and that's part of

9:41

why Nicholas Carr used the term shallows.

9:44

That's why some of my colleagues in Norway

9:48

even talk about the shallow wing

9:50

hypothesis. Many,

9:52

many of us have, if

9:54

you will, regressed to

9:57

that earliest form of reading in

9:59

which we are barely skimming

10:02

the surface of what we read,

10:05

barely consolidating it in

10:07

memory. And we are

10:09

in fact reading less

10:12

of what is there as a result.

10:16

I'm really trying to decide if

10:18

I wanna keep the structure I'd intended

10:20

here or jump around a bit. So

10:22

let me say this because maybe it's a good way of signposting

10:25

where I'm going for everybody listening. I'm

10:28

interested in your work. And I'm interested

10:30

in this conversation because

10:33

I'm interested in the states you can

10:35

achieve while reading. And

10:38

we talk about reading typically

10:40

in terms of the content

10:42

as if the question of reading is

10:44

what you read. And what your

10:47

work is getting at is

10:49

that at least as important

10:51

a question is how you

10:53

read, the process by which

10:55

you read, the distractions,

10:58

the physical formats, the qualities

11:01

and levels of attention you bring. And

11:03

this gets to something that you pointed out

11:05

a minute or two ago, which is plasticity.

11:10

Talk a bit about plasticity and its

11:12

relationship to reading.

11:15

The most important two words

11:18

that I will use in this next

11:21

part of the discussion are

11:22

attention,

11:24

the quality of attention and

11:28

insight, epiphany. There

11:31

is a quick line

11:34

between attention

11:37

and

11:38

shallow memory that

11:40

is possible

11:41

because we have a plastic brain. It

11:44

doesn't tell us exactly

11:46

what to do. Rather,

11:49

this plasticity is

11:52

dependent

11:54

on

11:55

the medium in which

11:57

we read, the language.

12:00

or writing system orthography in

12:03

which we read and even

12:05

the educational background that

12:08

taught us how to read in particular

12:10

ways.

12:10

Now I bring us back

12:13

to the two words attention and

12:15

insight.

12:17

Plasticity means

12:19

that the way we

12:22

read will be

12:25

reflecting the affordances

12:29

of the medium. This was

12:31

a point that McClellan made, his

12:34

student Walter Ong

12:36

made, certainly postman

12:38

made as you indicated in your

12:41

August essay. All

12:43

of these people were on

12:45

to the basic principle

12:48

that how we read on

12:50

a medium changes

12:53

what we discern, what we

12:56

comprehend. Now I'm going

12:58

to push just slightly this plasticity

13:01

into the affordances of digital versus

13:03

print. The affordances

13:06

of the digital

13:06

screen are

13:08

really exciting. They

13:11

help us skim the extraordinary

13:15

voluminous nature of information

13:17

that's out there. Skimming

13:20

is a defense mechanism that's

13:22

very useful. We can handle so

13:25

much information and your

13:27

job and

13:29

mine involves six

13:31

to ten hours a day of

13:34

sampling information if you will,

13:37

making sure we're aware. But how

13:41

we are reading it will

13:44

change the nature

13:46

of what we have absorbed.

13:49

And many people

13:51

are asking me, in fact I did an NPR

13:53

program, on why people don't

13:56

feel the same immersiveness

13:58

in the reading experience.

13:59

And it's very simple because

14:02

the affordances of

14:05

the digital medium which enhance

14:07

the speed in which we're reading and

14:10

focusing on vast amounts

14:12

of information, multitasking,

14:14

and being entertained, if you will,

14:17

being engaged at that level, all

14:19

of that actually

14:22

takes away

14:25

from the ability to

14:27

use the full circuitry,

14:31

the full circuitry which includes

14:33

using your background knowledge to infer,

14:36

to deduce the truth

14:38

value, to feel

14:41

what that author is feeling

14:43

in a work of fiction, to understand

14:46

a completely different perspective. All

14:49

of that takes time.

14:52

The print medium's affordances

14:56

advantage the giving,

14:59

the allocation of time

15:02

to words, concepts

15:04

in a way that when we skim,

15:07

we simply don't have

15:09

the same amount of time to

15:12

process. So plasticity

15:15

changes the nature of

15:17

attention. Attention is

15:19

very sophisticated and complex, but

15:22

the amount of attention that we have

15:24

is going to be influenced by all

15:27

the distractions that you

15:29

just discussed as you framed

15:31

my question. But it will lead

15:34

ultimately to the delunition

15:37

of the time necessary for

15:39

the insights at the end.

15:42

I want to step away from for a minute

15:45

the digital versus print because before

15:47

we get there, I want to get a little

15:49

bit more into this idea. It's

15:52

not just that mediums change us. I was thinking

15:54

about this language. It's that

15:56

habits change us. It's that what we do again

15:58

and again changes us. you have the term

16:01

in your book, use it or lose

16:03

it for something maybe as unnatural

16:05

as you put it as reading. Maybe

16:07

a way of thinking about it is build

16:10

it or lose it. But give

16:12

me some examples of skills that

16:15

we can strengthen

16:17

or that we can weaken depending

16:19

on how we read. We

16:22

develop, you call it

16:24

habits, I call it mindsets

16:28

in which we

16:30

develop a way of doing things.

16:33

With our background in print, we

16:35

developed a very particular mindset

16:38

that you possess Ezra and

16:41

I as what we were, if

16:43

you will, formed. That's how

16:45

we were formed as readers. I

16:48

call this moment in time technologically

16:51

a hinge moment. As we move

16:53

to the other side of that hinge moment,

16:56

we have made our habit of reading

16:59

largely

17:00

on screen.

17:03

So imperceptibly, we

17:06

are developing a mindset

17:09

or habit of reading in

17:11

a particular way that

17:13

by and large is

17:16

based on a kind of skimming

17:19

reading. Again, because

17:21

of all the information we have to

17:24

process in any given day. So

17:27

the habit or mindset

17:30

is now so largely

17:32

influenced by us reading on screens

17:35

that we take that mindset even

17:38

back to print. We

17:41

can build habits of

17:43

mind, a kind of reading

17:45

that's after the innermost landscape

17:48

of our thinking. Whether we call

17:50

it

17:50

a sanctuary of reading, Proust

17:53

always had something amazing to say about

17:55

everything. He saw the heart of

17:58

reading as the place of the world.

17:59

where we go beyond

18:02

the wisdom of the author

18:05

to discover our own. How

18:08

do we build a habit of mind

18:11

in which we decide

18:13

from the start of whatever we are reading,

18:16

what is the purpose? If the purpose

18:18

is my shallow email,

18:21

then I will skim with

18:23

no guilt at all. But

18:26

if my intention or my purpose

18:28

is to really understand something

18:31

at ever deeper levels of its complexity

18:33

or

18:35

to perceive the beauty

18:38

of that carefully chosen word, when

18:40

we are reading for that

18:43

purpose, for beauty, for

18:46

understanding at the deepest level, then

18:49

we have to really figure

18:51

out how to use either

18:54

print out and use print

18:56

or how to ensure

18:59

that we can read on any

19:01

medium with the deep

19:04

reading processes

19:05

as we read.

19:07

So I want to pause on that Proust quote

19:10

because it's really the heart

19:12

of this conversation too.

19:15

There's a state I get in, less

19:18

and less these days, but in part

19:20

because of the way my world works and

19:23

my phone and my computers, I now associate

19:25

it with plainflakes because

19:29

nobody can call me and I don't buy internet. It's

19:32

a state that I only seem to access when reading and

19:36

only when reading

19:38

without distraction for a long period of time. It's

19:42

very strange and it is one of my most

19:44

loved states where

19:47

on the one hand I seem very focused on the text,

19:50

at the same time my thinking becomes expansive

19:54

and associational to

19:56

the point of Proust where the wisdom

19:58

goes beyond the author. and into your own,

20:00

I seem to get flashes

20:03

of insight that can unlock whole problems

20:06

or open whole new avenues for myself. It's

20:09

meditative but epiphanic.

20:12

And

20:13

every time I get off of a plane,

20:15

I say to myself,

20:17

I'm going to do that more.

20:19

I'm going to do that more. I'm going to sit and I'm going

20:21

to have quiet time with a book.

20:23

And this was so valuable. And I got like three

20:26

months of intellectual work done in four hours

20:28

and then I don't. And

20:30

so first I want to ask you, what

20:33

is that state? What is happening

20:36

to me in that place where

20:40

you enter into this almost fugue state

20:43

of reading an insight that

20:46

you were not in when you opened the book?

20:49

Well, first I'm so glad that

20:51

you understand your

20:54

own insight. And I want to

20:56

give you two

20:57

completely different

20:59

perspectives on this. So you and I

21:01

are going to do what the brain does. We're going to do some heavy

21:04

duty interactive associations

21:07

of two different perspectives on your question.

21:10

The first one is Aristotle.

21:12

Aristotle was

21:14

writing about what makes a

21:16

good society. And he said there are three

21:19

lives to a good society. The

21:21

first life is the life of productivity

21:23

and knowledge and cruel of information.

21:26

The second life that

21:28

is in the Greek sense leisure, entertainment.

21:31

One has to have that.

21:34

He said the third life that is essential

21:37

is the life

21:38

of reflection.

21:40

He is the word contemplation. Now,

21:43

that is a perspective, let's call it the Aristotelian

21:46

perspective, in which

21:47

the contemplative is

21:50

going missing and we don't

21:53

realize how important it is to

21:55

insight. Just the same thing that you experienced

21:57

on a plane.

21:59

large, weird across everyone. Where

22:02

are our best insights? Where are

22:04

we going to have the space and

22:06

time

22:08

to give that next generation the

22:11

full sum of our wisdom?

22:13

So that's the real cetylian perspective. The second

22:16

one is a more cognitive neuroscience

22:18

one. And there was this one amazing

22:21

set of researchers who were trying

22:24

to deal with, you know, what's the aha

22:26

experience, what's the insight experience

22:28

we had? And what they found

22:31

was that the brain was activated

22:34

everywhere it would seem. All

22:36

these different regions in this, both

22:38

hemispheres. Well

22:40

I find the humor in that

22:43

actually

22:45

very helpful in

22:47

understanding what

22:49

you are talking about because

22:51

it illustrates that when

22:54

we reach that state

22:56

we are activating all

22:59

we know and going beyond

23:01

it. We're making new connections

23:04

and those new connections are

23:06

the basis of novel

23:09

thoughts. And that's what

23:11

we want for everyone to

23:14

have as a

23:15

piece of what it means

23:17

to learn to read.

23:18

It's a mistake done by

23:21

our educational system that

23:23

sometimes we are, you know, if it's I think

23:25

one thing versus another, but we should

23:28

all share the goal that

23:31

that reading sanctuary,

23:33

that inner most landscape,

23:36

that's where

23:37

we go when we read our best.

23:40

And that's what reading gives us. It gives us

23:42

both our best thoughts, but

23:45

it also is one of the

23:47

best forms of communication with

23:51

other's best thoughts. It's

23:54

communicative

23:55

and it's solitary and

23:59

that's

23:59

its own miracle. miracle.

24:13

I'm Elise Hu. And I'm Josh Klein.

24:16

And we're the hosts of Built for Change, a

24:18

podcast from Accenture. On Built for Change, we're

24:20

talking to business leaders from every

24:22

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24:24

to reinvent the future of their business.

24:26

We're discussing ideas like the importance

24:29

of ethical AI or how productivity

24:31

soars when companies truly listen

24:33

to what their employees value. These are

24:35

insights that leaders need to know to stay ahead.

24:38

So subscribe to Built for Change wherever

24:40

you get your podcasts.

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25:28

You ran an interesting experiment. Maybe

25:31

that's a little bit too grand a word for it, but

25:34

an interesting test on yourself around

25:36

this. Tell me about reading Hermann

25:38

Hesse's Magister Ludi

25:41

again. Yes. So

25:43

before I went to neuroscience, I had two

25:46

degrees in English, and I really thought

25:48

I would study comp lit, especially

25:51

Rilke, Hermann Hesse. It

25:54

was a grand, grand scheme

25:57

for my life. And

25:59

then I decided...

25:59

discovered the political reality

26:02

of literacy in a Peace Corps-like thing.

26:05

Before I made the big switch

26:09

to see literacy as a

26:11

basic human right and pursue it to

26:13

the end of my days,

26:16

I read Hermann Hesse with such

26:18

love and affection. I read everything.

26:20

I thought I read everything. And

26:22

Goss B. Game, Magus der Lutti,

26:25

Goss Pärlenspiel. That

26:27

was my favorite. It was probably

26:29

why I got the Nobel Prize for Literature.

26:33

And it represented for me

26:35

the quest for knowledge. So

26:37

I

26:38

decided, since I'm writing and telling

26:40

everybody else what

26:42

terrible people they are by not

26:45

reading books in the way

26:47

that I think we should, I thought

26:49

I would test myself by going back to

26:51

Magus der Lutti because I

26:54

certainly knew the plot and I certainly

26:55

knew it wasn't going to be any murder

26:58

or sex or anything else to distract me.

27:00

I could just immerse myself.

27:02

And so I did. And

27:04

utterly,

27:06

completely failed to

27:09

be able to even read the

27:11

first part of the book. It felt sluggish.

27:14

I think I said something like, Creusseau

27:16

going across my cerebral

27:19

hemispheres.

27:19

It was like, how could

27:21

he have gotten a Nobel Prize? I wouldn't

27:24

have given a Nobel Prize for

27:26

this. And I

27:28

put the book back. So I tried again.

27:31

I went back

27:31

just at a personal peak

27:33

in myself.

27:34

And I thought I would try again. And

27:36

so I only allowed myself to read a few

27:38

minutes a day for a while. And

27:41

basically, Ezra, what I had

27:43

to do is slow

27:45

myself down. I thought I was reading online

27:47

and in print with

27:51

the same immersive qualities as

27:54

I had as an English major.

27:56

But I had lost that.

27:57

I'd lost that. I

28:00

lost my most beloved

28:02

home and I hadn't

28:04

known it. So it took

28:06

about two weeks before I could

28:09

get the pace necessary

28:12

that would match the book. I

28:15

found my home again and

28:17

then I read it another time.

28:20

And that was finally the

28:23

time in which I could remember the pleasure

28:26

of just deep diving

28:28

into another world

28:31

and being there

28:32

with no distraction. But

28:35

it took real work to recover

28:37

that Ezra. I had not realized how

28:40

far I had strayed from that

28:43

form of reading myself.

28:45

I wonder if there isn't an

28:48

answer to what I think should

28:50

be understood as a

28:52

quite profound mystery of our age in that.

28:56

And this is a suspicion I've had for

28:59

a bit. So we live in this age

29:01

in which one of the fundamental

29:04

scarcities of all of human civilization

29:06

and existence has been lifted, which is information.

29:09

The amount of information any individual

29:12

being had access to a

29:14

hundred years ago to say nothing of a thousand was

29:18

so minuscule, so bounded compared

29:20

to what is possible for us to know now, to share

29:23

now, to access now. And

29:25

so you would think, having lifted

29:28

the constraint on what we can know and

29:30

what we can share, that

29:33

you would see

29:34

something,

29:36

economic growth, the

29:38

depth of our democracies, our societal

29:42

wisdom and humaneness

29:44

accelerate.

29:45

Something of the early utopian

29:48

beliefs about the internet would come true. Instead

29:51

you look around and growth is not faster

29:53

than it was 50 years ago. We

29:56

do not see more wise. Our politics

29:58

is not more. elevated,

30:00

to say the least. And

30:04

I think what you're saying, and I

30:06

think many people have sensed, might be at

30:08

least a partial explanation. We

30:11

made it possible to have so much more information

30:14

in a way that made it impossible

30:17

or more difficult to

30:21

reflect upon and develop

30:23

insights upon that information. And

30:26

as such, we increased information but reduced

30:29

judgment. And so as you say,

30:31

we're not passing on our best thoughts.

30:34

But it's also weirdly why the information we have access

30:37

to isn't creating

30:40

some civilization-wide

30:43

betterment.

30:44

Because it turned out the information was never enough.

30:47

It's what we did with it, what we thought about it,

30:49

the connections we made with it. And we've

30:51

degraded those capacities

30:54

at wide scale, even as

30:56

we've increased connectivity and

30:59

quantity of what we can know.

31:02

So the very bombardment,

31:04

the very volume, is causing

31:07

people ultimately to go only

31:09

to the

31:12

familiar sources of

31:14

that information. And

31:16

then they become

31:17

calcified into

31:20

thinking in those,

31:22

if you will, reduced

31:24

terms, which by and

31:26

large, this is a term used by many

31:29

people, is part of the confirmatory

31:32

bias characteristic that's

31:34

happening with information. You

31:36

go to your familiar source.

31:39

You don't try on other perspectives.

31:42

It's too much. So you become,

31:45

instead of more informed,

31:48

informed only about one

31:50

particular perspective

31:52

on that information. You

31:54

are not using your critical analytic

31:57

capacities to discern truth.

31:59

and therefore you are

32:02

totally susceptible

32:04

to mis and disinformation

32:07

and ultimately demagoguery.

32:10

Everything I have done which

32:13

was meant to be an apologia

32:15

for reading led me to

32:17

a darker insight

32:20

which is that the very act

32:22

of reading has become so degraded

32:25

because of the bombardment

32:28

of information because of the

32:30

affordances of the particular

32:33

medium and because we

32:35

have become all of us,

32:38

cognitively, impatient.

32:40

We don't want to spend

32:42

the time.

32:44

Let me hold you there because I want to

32:46

question the word want and I want to bring

32:48

this back in a way to neuroplasticity. You

32:52

talk at times about the opposite of cognitive

32:54

impatience which is cognitive patience.

32:58

But when we exist

33:00

in a digital world in particular that

33:03

is so constantly assaulting

33:05

us with novelty, what

33:08

I understand happens to the mind is it

33:10

begins to expect and even crave

33:13

novelty. And

33:15

so this is one of the places where I have

33:17

a real fear about myself, about my sons,

33:19

about my society, that we

33:22

are training ourselves, are

33:24

training our minds away from cognitive patience

33:26

which isn't just, maybe it is for some

33:28

people, a virtue. But it's

33:31

also a capacity. Can

33:33

you talk a bit about that dimension

33:36

of it, the part that's not about what we want to do

33:38

but about what our brains become used to doing?

33:40

There's a term that people use

33:43

in this area called the novelty

33:46

bias. And that's a

33:48

reflex that goes all

33:50

the way back to our hunter-gatherer days

33:53

in which to see what

33:56

was unusual was to

33:58

preserve our life.

33:59

whether it was a predator that

34:02

we were able to avoid, or

34:04

make a strategy to avoid, or

34:06

whether it's something that we could eat

34:09

and not be poisoned, but

34:11

survival itself dependent

34:14

on that novelty reflex. Now,

34:18

that novelty reflex is

34:20

now

34:21

being hyperstimulated

34:22

from infancy

34:25

on. And I make a really

34:28

hard point

34:30

with my pediatric colleagues

34:33

like Barry Zuckerman and

34:36

John Hutton from Cincinnati.

34:38

All of these people are really

34:41

trying hard to insist we

34:43

don't endure our

34:46

children to distraction and novelty

34:49

because they are complete

34:52

victims to the novelty reflex. Anything

34:55

distracts them and they are becoming

34:58

hyperstimulated. So even

35:00

though you were talking about

35:02

cognitive patients being formed,

35:05

I will say it's being malformed,

35:08

this formed from the start

35:11

by parents not realizing that

35:15

these screens are not babysitters,

35:18

but that they are shaping the

35:21

demand for attention and novelty

35:23

in our young. So your

35:26

statement about cognitive

35:28

patients being a capacity

35:32

that can be learned is something

35:34

that I really want

35:36

to help parents and

35:39

educators understand. We all

35:42

have a role to play. We

35:44

have a role to play in being a model,

35:47

but we have a role to play in what

35:49

we expose our children to and

35:52

how many hours and when. So

35:55

it's a capacity that I think our

35:57

educational system of the future.

35:59

and the present has to

36:02

really figure out and we

36:04

haven't figured it out.

36:07

I was thinking about this reading your book. So

36:10

I have two sons, one's one year old

36:12

and one is almost four. And

36:15

I was thinking about how for my four year old

36:19

it isn't his distractedness

36:21

that worries me.

36:23

It's his focus. And I

36:25

say this because, particularly since he got

36:27

a brother, screen time rules are not

36:29

what they once were in my house. And

36:32

it's on all the time. But

36:34

it's so noticeable with a little kid. There

36:37

is so little he can

36:39

pay attention to for long periods, except

36:43

the screen. I

36:46

was reading in this wonderful

36:48

newspaper that hosts this podcast, there was

36:50

a feature about Coco Mellon, which is

36:52

this show of functionally

36:56

animated nursery rhymes that like

36:58

two and three year olds love and

37:01

adults hate. But they

37:03

talked about in this feature,

37:06

how they have set up a room, the place

37:08

that makes Coco Mellon, where they will

37:10

have a kid watching the show and

37:13

set up next to it is another screen that

37:16

shows an adult just doing normal household tasks,

37:18

just sort of wandering around doing whatever you do in the house.

37:21

And if the child becomes

37:25

distracted from Coco Mellon

37:28

by what the adult is doing, they

37:31

go back to the edit, and

37:33

they amp up the interestingness,

37:36

the cuts, the whatever makes

37:38

a Coco Mellon episode interesting. And

37:40

it was so dystopic, right? The level

37:42

of engineering, I mean, the

37:45

hypersaturation of the colors, the constant

37:47

cuts. And so I

37:49

mean, a little bit like, you know, hyper

37:51

sugary cereal or whatever, what

37:55

his system is learning to find

37:58

worth paying attention to. Right,

38:00

like how hard it is for the world to measure up to

38:02

that as it is for me I'm gonna bring this to me in

38:04

a second. So don't I'm not just putting this on

38:07

little kids But I know

38:09

every time I put them there it is training,

38:11

right? It is training about what's interesting

38:14

and what's not I mean in

38:16

a weird way like the natural state of the kid should be distracted

38:19

I can't have him distracted all the time because I sometimes

38:21

need to like clean dishes But

38:24

it is really unnerving.

38:26

It's unnerving and it's also

38:29

There's a certain unconscionable

38:32

aspect that has happened and

38:34

that is that those

38:37

of us who really believed

38:39

that and I know you and I

38:41

actually believe similarly 10 12 years

38:44

ago that the forces of

38:46

the good would prevail

38:49

with this medium and this culture but

38:52

what has happened is that profit

38:54

and other

38:56

motivations have

38:59

Not just made sure

39:01

that engagement was taking place But

39:04

that the same formula that casino

39:08

gamblers use to

39:10

give intermittent Reinforcement

39:13

plus those ways of engagement so

39:15

that the child is addicted

39:18

But what you said and I returned

39:21

back to your child is that he

39:24

can't focus the same In

39:26

the ways that you would hope and that's

39:29

because he's hyper stimulated He

39:31

is being molded the

39:34

same things that are making

39:36

a gambler addicted in

39:38

a very Small way that's

39:41

happening with our children So

39:43

those of us who are studying

39:45

this from the neuroscience viewpoint

39:48

like John Hutton We can tell you

39:51

I can tell you right now what we call

39:53

the Goldilocks study where

39:56

a parent reads a story the

39:59

same story is been in an audio form

40:01

and just heard by the child. This is a

40:03

three-year-old or a four-year-old. Or

40:05

it's animated in a screen.

40:08

Well,

40:10

you know that they are paying

40:13

very close attention to

40:15

that screen. But what you don't know

40:17

is if you do or look at the activation

40:20

of the language regions of the brain under

40:23

all three of those circumstances, language

40:26

is being activated most

40:29

by when a parent or caretaker

40:31

is reading that same story. The

40:34

passivity is gone out the window.

40:36

There is an interactive nature

40:39

to it. And there is a use

40:42

of their language knowledge and

40:44

their background knowledge that's coming

40:46

to bear more forcefully

40:49

in that print situation

40:52

and more passively in

40:54

the screen situation. And

40:56

so of course, you have differences

40:59

in concentration. You have differences

41:02

in attention. Walter Benjamin

41:04

said that boredom is the hatch

41:06

bird of the imagination. Well,

41:09

our

41:10

children, the first thing

41:12

they do after they go off

41:14

the screen is say,

41:16

I'm bored.

41:18

But this is not Walter Benjamin's

41:20

boredom. This is boredom that seeks

41:23

to, if you will, assuage

41:26

its need for hyperstimulation

41:29

by getting more.

41:31

This is something that we must figure

41:33

out.

41:35

It's funny. I think there's something almost comforting

41:37

about putting this on the kids. And I promise I won't spend

41:40

the whole time we have together on parenting. But this

41:42

is something that occurred

41:45

to me in an unpleasant way reading

41:48

your chapters about children, which

41:51

is it's easy to talk about the way

41:53

kids growing up with modern screens.

41:57

I grew up with TV. Streaming

41:59

is totally different. different because anything can be on at

42:01

any minute. Like the iPad is like a whole other

42:03

level of engagement for my son. But

42:06

it's true for the parents too. I was thinking

42:08

about how my engagement with

42:10

screens means that

42:12

there's always a possibility of something

42:15

at least plausibly really interesting.

42:17

And kids are often no offense to them, quite

42:19

boring. They need you to sit around

42:22

doing a lot of things that are not the most engaging thing

42:24

that I can possibly imagine doing. And

42:27

I as a parent, and basically all the

42:29

parents I know, you know, will sometimes collapse

42:31

to the screen because I

42:35

too like am hooked

42:37

into the novelty. And

42:39

as such, I am not there playing

42:42

make believe or reading or whatever it

42:44

might be

42:47

that isn't the way this acts on

42:49

children, I guess is what I'm saying is not just because

42:51

we put the kids in front of the screens, but because we put

42:54

the parents want to get back

42:56

to their screens too, to the point

42:58

that now I try, if I go to the playground with them,

43:00

I don't bring, I try not to bring my phone unless

43:02

there's some reason I really need it because

43:04

I

43:05

can't stop myself. Exactly.

43:08

Which is also very strange.

43:10

You are as addicted as anyone.

43:12

We all are.

43:14

But I'm trying to get at with this question is you

43:16

were just bringing up how different it is for the child

43:18

to have the parents' attention and

43:20

the parents are inattentive too. What does that mean

43:23

for children?

43:24

So they are being given a constant

43:27

model. And if you look at children,

43:30

you'll see that they are among other

43:32

things, great imitators. So

43:35

one of the more horrifying aspects of

43:37

that Goldilocks study that I told

43:39

you where parents came in and read

43:41

to their child or they thought, well,

43:44

one of the things that happened was that John

43:46

Hutton saw some of the parents

43:49

reading to their child and then turning

43:52

every 30 seconds to check

43:54

their email.

43:57

And this was like the

43:59

perfect.

43:59

example, the very act

44:02

of being a caretaker, an interactive

44:04

reader to your child is being

44:07

disrupted by

44:09

the addiction of the parent to

44:12

social media or whatever is on

44:14

their phone. This is a part

44:16

of reality that parents need

44:19

to face in themselves. If

44:21

we are to model, then

44:24

we must model not only

44:27

good uses of technology, but

44:29

good

44:29

uses of time itself that

44:32

isn't devoted or distracted by

44:34

technology.

44:36

Let me ask you about how we use our

44:38

phones because there's something a little paradoxical

44:41

here. On the one hand, we're reading

44:43

more words than ever. I mean, we're constantly

44:46

reading words. In some ways, it's a paradise

44:48

for readers for reading, but

44:51

this gets a bit at this idea that we talked

44:53

about at the beginning that reading is

44:55

not any one thing. We mentioned earlier

44:58

scanning and it also bring into play

45:00

here scrolling, the fact that the screen

45:03

moves while you're looking at it. What

45:05

have you learned in your research and the research of your colleagues

45:08

about what is different when we're

45:10

reading in this scanning scrolling

45:13

way that phones and screens

45:16

demand?

45:17

I've been doing a lot of work

45:20

with colleagues like Naomi

45:22

Baron who has an Oxford

45:24

book called How We Read Now,

45:27

my colleagues in Norway in the e-read

45:30

network. We're all

45:32

trying to understand what are

45:35

these characteristics of skimming,

45:37

scanning, scrolling. One

45:40

of the things that is most

45:43

obvious is that

45:45

your ability to

45:47

comprehend and sequence detail

45:51

when you're skimming or scanning goes

45:53

out the door. One

45:55

of the things that goes out the door along

45:57

with it is called comprehending.

46:01

monitoring. Now when we're reading

46:03

let's say print by

46:06

and large this is not noticeable

46:08

to yourself but you're checking

46:10

you've gone left you've gone right you're

46:13

always going a little ahead but you're also

46:15

going back to check. This

46:17

comprehension monitoring is

46:20

not going to be at the fore

46:23

when what you are doing is in fact

46:25

trying to get to the end. You

46:28

are missing monitoring

46:31

so you are missing sometimes

46:34

very important details in a

46:36

plot or in an essay. So

46:39

there are several things that contribute

46:41

to that. The first is the

46:44

speed with which you

46:46

are accustomed to skimming,

46:48

scanning, scrolling. Now remember the

46:51

eye movement people are studying

46:53

this and they're seeing that's what most

46:55

of us are doing. When you're

46:57

skimming and scrolling you can

47:00

easily just stay

47:02

at the level of the tip of the iceberg

47:05

because you are being hastened

47:08

along not

47:11

poised to think about what

47:13

you're reading.

47:14

So it's a bit of an experiment when I was reading your

47:16

book I alternated between

47:19

reading chapters in

47:21

the physical book the paperback and on

47:24

my Kindle which is actually where I do most of my reading

47:26

and I love my Kindle because my memory is

47:29

trash and I guess we'll talk about that

47:31

and the ability to highlight and keep

47:33

on my highlights centrally located

47:35

and searchable is really valuable

47:37

to me. But I did really notice something

47:40

that that you just said when I was

47:42

reading the book and paper which

47:45

is I noticed how much more often I went backwards

47:49

how much easier it was and more

47:51

natural it was somehow to

47:53

move around in the book. On

47:56

the Kindle if I sort of zoned out on something it's

47:58

lost. I'm

48:00

going forward. It's not

48:02

obviously impossible to go back and sometimes I do.

48:05

But I noticed how much more often

48:07

in the book I moved backwards

48:09

as well as forwards or noticed

48:12

that I had lost attention for a little bit.

48:15

That there is something about the physicality

48:17

of it that made moving

48:20

through the

48:21

space of it

48:23

different in ways that I

48:25

suspect probably did help my comprehension.

48:27

When you ask me where something

48:29

is in a book, I have

48:31

a visual sense. It's

48:34

on the bottom third of

48:36

the page. It's about a fourth the

48:38

way through. And of course, I

48:40

write all through my book. So I

48:43

have a visual spatial image

48:46

for some of the things that are most important

48:49

in what I read. And there

48:52

is no way we

48:54

do that on screen or audio. And

48:57

I use both and I listen

48:59

to books, but we don't monitor.

49:02

You can go back. I mean, just as you said,

49:04

you can go back, but you never

49:06

do. And so things

49:09

go missing. And the things

49:11

that go missing may

49:13

in some instances be

49:15

the most important facts

49:17

or details to understanding

49:20

the plot or understanding

49:23

the argument.

49:25

But let me take the other side of this because

49:27

what I said about the Kindle is also true.

49:30

Memory is a very weak facility.

49:34

Now there's some evidence that's gotten weaker and you

49:36

can go back to, I don't know,

49:38

Socrates or Aristotle who says that writing

49:41

is going to be bad because then we're not going to remember anything.

49:44

Right. The recipe for forgetting.

49:47

Yeah. Maybe if we never had writing, I'd have an amazing

49:49

memory and I wouldn't feel this way. But

49:52

there are real advantages to digital text.

49:55

And so is maybe some of this that we're just

49:57

in a transition time. You know, it took a long

49:59

time to figure out how

49:59

to read, figured

50:00

how to do books. For a long time,

50:03

most people couldn't read and books were

50:05

reserved for the elite.

50:07

And we are still learning about digital

50:09

text, but there are very, very clear advantages

50:12

and that as we are able

50:14

to develop them more deeply, we

50:16

will recognize

50:18

that just as it's better to have writing and reading

50:21

than to not, it's much, much, much, much better

50:23

to have these digital worlds than to not.

50:25

I mean, are you and I just cranky,

50:28

you know, are we the

50:30

equivalent of our parents? Like the VCR is too complicated

50:32

and it's always distracting me.

50:34

You

50:37

have often quoted or have at least

50:39

recently often quoted McLuhan and

50:42

McLuhan's basic protege

50:45

was this amazing scholar

50:47

Walter

50:48

Ong. And he, I

50:50

think, said it better than I

50:52

can. He said, the problem is

50:54

not orality,

50:57

oral culture versus illiterate culture.

51:00

The problem is figuring out what

51:02

to do when we are steeped

51:05

in both. And that's

51:08

how I conceptualize what

51:10

I call this hinge moment between

51:13

the technologies

51:15

represented rudely

51:17

by illiterate versus a digital culture.

51:20

There's no going back. We

51:23

are much better served

51:25

by thinking about

51:27

what Ong said, what do we do

51:30

for those steeped in both? And

51:33

so my job as I

51:35

conceptualize it is to be

51:38

not Cassandra's or someone

51:41

only talking about the negative aspects

51:43

of digital, but to say,

51:46

we must not be ignorant

51:49

of what we are disrupting or diminishing.

51:52

And so for almost

51:54

all my lectures, I end

51:56

with something that will say,

51:58

preserve the as we expand.

52:01

And that's what my goal for

52:04

others is to understand

52:06

what we are disrupting and

52:08

to figure out ways to build habits

52:11

of mind, habits of the reading

52:14

mind that we can

52:16

use

52:18

with purposefulness,

52:22

whatever medium we're on.

52:25

Is part of the issue here that we have operated

52:27

with the wrong metaphor? So

52:30

I wonder whether we have

52:32

gotten too into what I think of as the

52:35

matrix jack theory of

52:37

learning. I have always wanted

52:39

the thing in the matrix where

52:42

they put the little needle in the back of your head into

52:44

the jack. And then you know kung fu.

52:47

There's so many books I've said to people that

52:50

I want to have read the book. And

52:54

it took a long time. It's actually Nicholas Carr's book that

52:56

began to the shallows and began to make me think

52:58

differently about this, but to realize that it

53:00

was the time I spent

53:03

in the book that really

53:05

mattered. There was a quote from Sam Bankman

53:07

Fried that was making the rounds B is Sam Bankman

53:09

Fried being the former

53:11

head of of FTX is crypto exchange

53:14

collapsed. And he says in there that he's

53:16

very skeptical of books. He thinks

53:18

mostly books should not be books.

53:21

They should be six paragraph blog posts. And

53:23

somebody's written both a book and more six paragraph

53:25

blog posts that I can count. Even

53:28

when the book is expanding an idea that could be shorter,

53:31

some of its value for the reader is actually the time

53:33

spent there wrestling. And I

53:35

wonder if the point of this a little bit

53:39

isn't that we think

53:41

much too much about the information we pass

53:43

on to ourselves or teach children in

53:45

schools and not enough about

53:48

the

53:50

states

53:51

that we're spending time in

53:53

and as such the circuits in the mind that

53:56

we are deepening and strengthening versus

53:59

letting language. that we've gotten

54:01

too hung up on products

54:04

as opposed to process.

54:05

I think that you are putting

54:08

just a beautiful metaphor,

54:12

if you will, for what's important.

54:15

And it's not information.

54:17

We need facts. This is the Aristotle's

54:20

Three Lies, but we need contemplation

54:23

and we have forgotten our need

54:26

for it. We also need

54:28

something else. And it's the

54:31

isotope of knowledge or insight

54:34

is feeling that's so important.

54:37

I've been reading Hermann Hesse again. And

54:40

one of the things he did at the end of his life

54:42

was write a poem about

54:45

books. And he said, all

54:48

the books in the world will

54:50

not bring you happiness,

54:52

but

54:53

build a secret path towards

54:56

your heart.

54:57

Let's not forget

55:00

the heart as

55:02

we battle what is best

55:05

for the mind. Because the heart, the

55:07

affective aspect of reading

55:10

is one of the most beautiful things

55:12

that leads to that inner sanctuary.

55:14

But it's part of what

55:17

happens on the journey

55:19

to insight, the feelings that

55:21

we have, the feelings that an

55:24

author elicits to us. That's

55:26

a form of knowledge.

55:28

We need heart and

55:31

brain as we look

55:34

at what reading gives us and what

55:36

we experience

55:38

when we're reading or not.

55:53

So much has changed

55:55

over the past few years. Oh yeah,

55:57

the shift to remote work, supply chain

55:59

demand. sustainability concerns, it

56:01

can be tough for leaders to keep up. But

56:03

we're here to help. I'm Elise Hugh. And

56:06

I'm Josh Klein. We're the hosts of Built for

56:08

Change, a podcast from Accenture. On Built

56:10

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56:12

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56:15

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56:17

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56:19

to Built for Change now to get new episodes

56:21

whenever they drop.

56:31

I'm going to ask a couple questions here about

56:33

ways forward. But one of them is about this. I mean,

56:36

if you're listening to this

56:38

conversation and you're thinking, oh, you know, I also

56:41

have lost some of this faculty.

56:43

What is the training

56:46

program to rediscover it look like? What

56:48

is the Marianne Wolf

56:51

plan for

56:53

refreshing your deep reading skills look like?

56:55

So you might laugh, but I

56:58

call it

56:59

bookends. The bookends

57:02

to a day. And

57:04

I'm very serious

57:07

about the two ends of the day.

57:09

Now with one and a

57:11

four year old Ezra, I don't know how I

57:13

feel guilty telling you this. But

57:16

I begin my day with meditation,

57:20

and then reading at least 20

57:22

minutes

57:25

of philosophical or theological

57:28

or spiritual or sometimes

57:31

political, something that

57:33

will absolutely take me

57:36

out of myself

57:37

and center me

57:39

completely center my

57:41

thinking, slow it down.

57:44

It

57:44

prepares me for

57:48

if you will, clearing the deck

57:51

of whatever detritus from

57:53

the night or even the day before

57:55

and reading myself

57:58

with a particular mind. set for

58:00

whatever the day brings. And

58:03

then at the end of the day, I do

58:05

two things that may or may not be

58:07

helpful to people, especially

58:10

people with young children. And that

58:12

is, I have to find a way for

58:14

the world of imagination to take

58:16

me away from the

58:19

work of the day. Sometimes

58:21

it's films, sometimes it's

58:23

novels, but it has to be something

58:26

truly in the world of imagination for

58:28

me. And then I end

58:30

that, because I don't want to be

58:32

on a screen at the very end of my day.

58:35

I often end it with

58:38

some essay

58:40

by Montagna. I

58:42

mean, that sounds really strange, but

58:46

he was the first essay writer.

58:48

And those essays are sometimes

58:51

really funny, sometimes really

58:54

boring, but whatever they they

58:57

give me a kind of

58:59

piece that I find

59:03

in very few places, Wendell Berry,

59:06

Marcus Aurelius, those

59:08

are the kinds of people who make

59:10

me feel the

59:13

piece at the end of the day

59:15

is something that

59:17

is really well worth

59:19

striving for. So I end

59:22

and I begin each day with books.

59:27

I'm honestly skeptical of reading

59:29

practices that are about the end of the day. Maybe

59:32

it's because I have young kids, as you mentioned, but

59:34

my reading at the end of the day, I do

59:37

it. I mean, I fall asleep looking at my Kindle

59:39

basically every night, but it

59:42

associates reading with sleep and I don't

59:44

get anywhere deep with it. In fact, I've

59:46

had to learn that if I'm going to do real

59:48

deep reading, it has to be possible sometimes

59:51

for me to fall asleep for 20 minutes during the day. So

59:53

I'm actually curious about practices

59:56

that are not about the end of the

59:58

day or the beginning of the day, because they're also for a lot

1:00:00

of people, those are not plausible times

1:00:02

to have the energy to make this a

1:00:04

priority. Like if you really want to do

1:00:06

this in the way that people work out, in

1:00:09

the way that they learn a new hobby, if

1:00:11

you want to make this part of your week

1:00:14

to

1:00:15

rediscover or retrain yourself as

1:00:17

a deep reader, what does it take?

1:00:19

Is it just

1:00:20

doing it? Is it something more than

1:00:22

that? Like what is the

1:00:24

version of this that is not in

1:00:26

the corners of your time?

1:00:28

That's such a good question for everyone

1:00:31

because there are such individual

1:00:33

differences about what helps

1:00:36

us return to that center,

1:00:38

that inner landscape. And

1:00:41

I leave it to the individual, I have the

1:00:43

advantage of having my children grown,

1:00:45

I can do this sort of bookending

1:00:48

my day. But the real

1:00:50

point isn't the bookending,

1:00:53

the real point is to remember,

1:00:57

to restore,

1:00:59

what is it Lorca said, that

1:01:02

ancient soul of

1:01:04

a child. I think each

1:01:06

of us have this busyness

1:01:09

that just we assume

1:01:11

we are the indispensable managers

1:01:15

of our days and times when

1:01:17

really we aren't giving ourselves

1:01:21

just the tiniest break in

1:01:23

being a manager, but rather

1:01:25

being just a sinker with a heart

1:01:27

and a mind and a soul. And so

1:01:31

what I would suggest is if

1:01:33

anyone can find

1:01:35

a secret place

1:01:36

in their day, a secret

1:01:39

corner,

1:01:39

maybe it's 10 minutes, maybe

1:01:41

it's 20, or they can

1:01:44

go off whether it's with a book or

1:01:46

with music or with something

1:01:49

that will just give them a chance to

1:01:52

remember who they are, who their best

1:01:54

selves are. That's not

1:01:56

a bookend, that's finding a corner

1:01:59

of the day.

1:01:59

day to

1:02:01

refine ourselves. I

1:02:03

actually do it with music sometimes

1:02:05

instead of reading. I've discovered

1:02:07

a composer, a Korean composer

1:02:10

named Ye Ruma, and I will

1:02:12

play a haunting piece and

1:02:14

it will elicit for me

1:02:16

something similar. So again,

1:02:18

there's these individual differences.

1:02:22

Reading leads to this apex, but

1:02:25

other things can too.

1:02:27

Let

1:02:27

me ask you about another proposal

1:02:31

you make in the book. This one more

1:02:33

far-reaching, which

1:02:35

is the biliterate brain and

1:02:38

the ways in which we should be encouraging

1:02:40

and explicitly teaching a biliterate

1:02:42

brain. What is the biliterate brain?

1:02:45

So I want to

1:02:48

actually state that in my

1:02:51

work, I'm

1:02:52

using the term biliterate in a very

1:02:54

particular way to refer to mediums.

1:02:57

It begins in

1:02:59

a parallel between

1:03:02

digital and print exposure

1:03:05

in which in the beginning print

1:03:07

is the medium of choice to

1:03:10

surround that child, especially in the

1:03:12

zero to two and then two

1:03:14

to five period. Digital can be

1:03:16

there, but like another teddy bear,

1:03:19

not something used as a reward

1:03:21

or as a punishment of any sort, neither,

1:03:24

but just as something that is part

1:03:27

of the environment, the landscape, never

1:03:30

as a babysitter, but that there

1:03:32

would be reading every single

1:03:34

night to the child from the parents

1:03:37

or caretakers every single night.

1:03:39

And then between five and ten, again,

1:03:42

print being the dominant medium, but

1:03:45

the parallel is that our children

1:03:48

in Regio, Emilia, and Italy

1:03:50

just shows how this can happen. They

1:03:53

can learn programming and coding

1:03:55

and all these wonderful cognitive

1:03:58

capacities that go with them.

1:03:59

digital. They can do that simultaneously,

1:04:03

but that they're doing parallel

1:04:06

tracks. They come together

1:04:09

when the aspects from

1:04:11

digital can be complementary

1:04:14

to books and print, but not

1:04:17

dominate reading between

1:04:19

five and ten. And somewhere

1:04:21

between ten and twelve, thirteen,

1:04:24

my hope is that teachers

1:04:27

across the world will

1:04:30

really have this aim of deep

1:04:32

reading processes, of critical

1:04:35

analysis and empathy being

1:04:37

at the core of what we teach our

1:04:39

children. Tommy Kudzir from

1:04:41

Israel has this program called Islands

1:04:44

of Understanding for that age

1:04:46

group. And I so admire

1:04:49

her because what she's doing is she's

1:04:51

putting literacy and the study

1:04:53

of empathy together. And

1:04:56

this is what I really want

1:04:58

us to do

1:04:59

as we then teach

1:05:02

our children to use those deep

1:05:04

reading processes on the

1:05:06

screen. Again, always

1:05:09

asking what is the purpose, never using

1:05:12

print or digital aimlessly,

1:05:15

but purposefully so that

1:05:17

those deep reading skills, the

1:05:20

inner sanctuary, is a well-known

1:05:23

landscape to the individual

1:05:25

child and to us. So

1:05:28

I really have a great deal of hope.

1:05:31

My colleague,

1:05:31

Marina Beres, in Boston, at Boston

1:05:33

College, talks, and we have

1:05:36

had long discussions together about

1:05:38

the different cognitive capacities

1:05:41

that are being advantaged by

1:05:43

these different mediums. And we shouldn't

1:05:45

be thinking about them as

1:05:48

being either in competition or in

1:05:50

conflict, but learn them

1:05:52

and then learn and teach teachers

1:05:55

to help integrate them

1:05:58

in whatever reading the child

1:05:59

is doing past 10 when

1:06:02

they're fluent, we hope.

1:06:05

Let me ask about the other side of this and for

1:06:07

adults. So I already asked

1:06:10

you how someone might rediscover,

1:06:14

retrain their deep reading

1:06:16

tendencies. But a lot of us, most

1:06:18

of us maybe, are going

1:06:21

to and do spend a lot of time staring

1:06:23

at a screen, skimming with

1:06:26

distractions everywhere. And

1:06:28

to the point of the biletoric brain, there

1:06:32

is doubtlessly good in that

1:06:34

as well as bad. It's easy to focus, I think,

1:06:37

on the bad, but surfing a lot of information,

1:06:40

being able to see a lot of different things, picking

1:06:42

through things. How

1:06:45

do you think about doing

1:06:48

that well? A suspicion I have,

1:06:51

I mentioned earlier, that maybe we're just in this lag

1:06:53

time. This is all very new.

1:06:56

And maybe we'll look for 20, 50, 100 years and

1:06:59

people will look at us, think,

1:07:02

oh, they were terrible at using that. They had no idea

1:07:05

what they were doing. In

1:07:07

terms of training, using, building,

1:07:11

what is good about these functions,

1:07:14

how do you think about or how do you for yourself try

1:07:17

to manage your digital reading, your

1:07:20

digital life, to get the best

1:07:22

out of it as opposed to the worst

1:07:24

out of

1:07:24

it? The first thing I do is

1:07:28

understand the purpose

1:07:30

of whatever I'm reading. Why

1:07:32

am I reading this? And there,

1:07:35

I would say 60% of my day with

1:07:39

the digital reading I do

1:07:41

is to find out whether

1:07:44

I should or should not

1:07:47

do something more. By

1:07:49

and large, I don't. But

1:07:51

if in the skimming, scrolling

1:07:54

that I do, like everybody else, I

1:07:56

realize this is something I really need

1:07:59

to understand.

1:07:59

I really need to do something about, then

1:08:02

I become a

1:08:04

different reader. If I don't

1:08:06

have access to print, I completely

1:08:09

slow myself down. I make

1:08:11

sure I'm taking notes. And

1:08:14

I physically take notes. I am full

1:08:17

of notebooks. And I know I could

1:08:19

use this note taking capacity

1:08:21

on the screen. I do not. I

1:08:24

find that the actual

1:08:27

act,

1:08:28

which is also true for children, the

1:08:31

Grafel Motor Act helps

1:08:34

my memory and consolidation.

1:08:37

And so

1:08:38

while 60% I don't do anything

1:08:41

differently from anyone else, all

1:08:43

those things that I consider important, I

1:08:45

either print out or I take very

1:08:48

careful notes. And I

1:08:50

am aware after

1:08:53

that experiment of how vulnerable

1:08:55

I am like everybody else to

1:08:58

the quick skim.

1:09:00

When it's useful,

1:09:02

great.

1:09:03

When it's not useful,

1:09:05

then I have to act differently and read

1:09:07

differently.

1:09:09

So then let me ask you what is always

1:09:11

our final question here, which is what are three

1:09:13

books that have influenced you that you would

1:09:15

recommend to the audience? I'm sure this one will be

1:09:17

very easy for you.

1:09:19

Oh, this is so horrible.

1:09:22

I told Annie that I was not going

1:09:24

to obey your rules, but

1:09:27

I will try to stay within

1:09:29

limits. First is my

1:09:31

favorite novelist, American

1:09:33

female novelist,

1:09:34

and that's Marilynne Robinson. Her

1:09:37

Gilead Home, Lila,

1:09:39

Jack, the trilogy Gilead

1:09:42

is one of the most beautiful novels,

1:09:44

I think, of the 20th

1:09:45

century, 20th, 21st century. Yeah,

1:09:47

I think Gilead is in my top five books. I

1:09:49

don't know how many times I've read it. In fact,

1:09:51

I was with Marilynne Robinson

1:09:54

once in a car and we were reciting

1:09:57

Emily Dickinson poems together.

1:09:59

And she's just an astonishing

1:10:02

person. So that's my first. My

1:10:04

second is

1:10:06

my friend, Gish Jen, who

1:10:09

unbelievably can

1:10:11

write even about dystopia

1:10:14

with a sense of humor and wit

1:10:16

that was in her book, The Resistors.

1:10:19

But I would really

1:10:20

actually want to say

1:10:22

that my favorite was her book, World and

1:10:25

Town, in which like few

1:10:27

other people, she helps us understand

1:10:30

what it means to be in a different

1:10:32

culture and to have

1:10:35

the same goals for

1:10:37

humanity, but from a completely

1:10:40

different stance. And so those

1:10:42

would be two that I suggest. The

1:10:44

third will be very difficult

1:10:46

for me because it's something between

1:10:49

Wendell Berry standing by

1:10:51

words and John Dunn,

1:10:54

the theologian loves

1:10:56

mine, which is essays on contemplation.

1:10:59

So those three were

1:11:01

really hard

1:11:02

for me to do, but also

1:11:04

what else I have come up with. I

1:11:07

like that somewhere between three and

1:11:09

three and nine, but those are wonderful suggestions.

1:11:11

I didn't say Middlemarch, and my children,

1:11:13

if I don't say Middlemarch, will say, Mom,

1:11:16

you lied to Ezra Klein. Middlemarch

1:11:19

is your favorite book. So I have to say that

1:11:21

at the

1:11:21

end. I love it. Mary

1:11:24

Ann Wolf, your book is Reader, Come

1:11:26

Home. Thank you very much.

1:11:28

Thank you, Ezra. A true pleasure.

1:11:30

Andrew

1:11:31

Crenshaw is produced by Amatha

1:11:36

Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, and

1:11:41

Ojekkarma.

1:11:43

Backchecking

1:11:46

by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair.

1:11:50

Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld.

1:11:53

Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. And special thanks

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to Quifton Lynn and Christina Simulicky.