Each of these podcasts talks about the concept of Deep Reading. Pay special attention to what is meant by deep reading and how it compares perhaps to how you read, or how you were taught to read.
In the On Point podcast episode “The Future Of The Reading Brain In An Increasingly Digital World” Podcast host Meghna Chakrabarti interviews Maryanne Wolf, an incoming director of UCLA's Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice Author of "Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World" Maryanne closes with wanting to emphasis two main points about deep reading processes with critical analyses and empathy "when we fail to allocate sufficient time to those 2 processes it leads us not to just be susceptible to false news but it leads us to be susceptible to demagoguery with its simple messages of fear and if you do this you will reap the rewards. This is a twitter mentality that reduces the complexities of the issues we need both critical analysis and empathy for lest we see other as Marilynne Robinson said as sinister rather a peace of the many voices of a Democratic society"(47:33) Even Though It sounds like a simple concept, when I cross examined the way I’ve been reading to how one should genuinely deeply read, I realize I have a tendency to skim reading as well as cherry pick parts in reading that seems more important than others . Especially when it comes to classes when understanding the general idea of what I read is prioritized in classes over the actual details, so as long as I “participated”. I was taught to read more critically and analytically when I was in highschool and understand the reason why people did what they did in the stories I was reading. But of course as I grow older for some reason when it comes to reading now, for classes if I don’t plan my time out to read then I will end up skimming a lot of the text. I definitely will re-learn and take mental notes that Maryanne had discussed because I feel like after listening to the impact of what non-critical reading can cause, I realize it can have detrimental consequences to my own well being as a learner.
Who benefits from a population that no longer thinks, no longer knows anything, but is utterly dependent on googling information? Is there a power imbalance here? What cannot happen if we are not thinking, if we have given up on knowledge? Who benefits from a population that can no longer deep read?
Most likely it will be the 1 percent of the richest people and companies who would largely benefit from this dependency. Because when people stop genuinely allocating the time to learn and care about the sources of their information it can cause what Maryanne says “the atrophy and the gradual disuse of our analytical and reflective capacities as individuals are the worst enemies of a truly democratic society for whatever reason in whatever medium and in whatever age” there is a completely power imbalance when it’s the top of the tier that can control the narratives of information. For example we may know about the few richest men in the world, such as Mark Zuckerburg, Jeff Bezos, Bill gates, and etc. but how many of the richest people do we know that pay to hide their names in Forbes. When we give up thinking or knowledge, the biggest capitalists in our society will profit even more from our ignorance, continuing to only prioritize profit over people.
Chakrabarti, Meghna “The Future Of The Reading Brain In An Increasingly Digital World” On Point, WBUR, August 21, 2018, https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/08/21/reader-come-home-maryanne-wolf.
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