Deep Reading and Digital Culture

Deep Reading and Digital Culture, by Mary Vasudeva

Part I

What is reading?

1. At its most basic, reading is decoding words, but when we talk about “reading”, we are usually talking about something much more complex. Reading integrates the ideas of a writer with the interpretation of a reader within a given context. There are four participants (at least) in all reading: the writer, the reader, the text and the context. As researcher and scholar Louise Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading states, reading is an exchange between a reader and a text in a particular context (Underwood-Edge). Thus, comprehension requires that we take into account all four of these aspects of the text in order to make meaning out of the text, to evaluate that meaning, and to figure out what, if anything, we can take from it.  Ultimately, our goal as readers is to ask: how does what I’ve read help me make sense of my life?

Step One: Make Meaning

Step Two: Evaluate

Step Three: What does it have to do with me

How do we make meaning?

(2) First, we decode the words and then we make sure we understand them within the context within which they are being presented. Vocabulary words can have different meanings depending on their context. And the more we know of a given context, the better we can understand the vocabulary.  Second, we look at the “meaning units” (sentences, paragraphs, chunks) and bring our interpretive strategies to bear to find the author’s ideas. Ideas are the reasons the author gives to make his argument. There are different “levels” of reasons: primary and secondary. The primary reasons are those reasons that make up the argument the author is making, and we want to make sure we understand them. Secondary reasons, in contrast, support the primary reasons; they tell us why the primary reasons should be believed. Third, and last, we should make a “skeleton” of the argument, a kind of outline of the author’s main points so we are in a position to evaluate the quality of the main claim (or thesis). A skeleton gives us a visual and organizational structure from which to make judgements about veracity.

(3) Many students struggle with this conception of reading as meaning making. They are more comfortable viewing reading as a fact finding mission or a memory exercise, both of which do not require as much engagement or thought (if any).

Meaning Making and the Self

(4) When students are asked “why should I read”, their answers tend to focus on getting information when reading non-fiction and if it is “relatable” for reading fiction (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZwid3ro7jo).  If pushed, they mention learning vocab, learning about someone else, and/or finding out something. But given the role reading has played in human development, clearly its goal has to be much broader and much deeper than those responses indicate. In fact, across history reading has played a dominant role in shaping our minds, our culture and our civilization in profound and often unpredictable ways (See Nicholas Carr, The Shallows, Chapt. 4, for extensive support for this claim).

(5) Over the past 100 years or so, reading has developed a more dominant and influential role in society as more and more of the population attends schools and, more particularly, college. There is much debate about the purpose of college, but most people seem to agree that college should teach students to “think critically, reason analytically, solve problems, and communicate clearly” (Menand). And reading can not only help us achieve all of these things, it is often the only way we can achieve them.

(6)In fact, reading is the prime mover of our college learning experience. Research by Arum and Roska demonstrates that students who read more than 40 pages a week show greater improvement in college than students who don’t do that much reading (Menand). Reading doesn’t just improve a student’s reading skills though, it improves their reasoning skills, their communication skills, their ability to analyze and their ability to critically think (not to mention, their ability to write). Not reading, we can assume, leaves many of these skills largely undeveloped.

(7) But, is that the sum purpose of reading? Don’t we want to look beyond our ability to succeed in a college classroom and our professional lives? Ultimately, these skills are very important but the larger goal, the one that encompasses all facets of our lives, is that we read so we can learn how to live, so that we can enrich our lives in ways that only words can provide. As McMaster notes, the only way we can understand our culture, ideas, our past and present, and our humanity in general is being exposed to the best and most articulate conceptions (44-45). He adds, we cannot “become” who we are out of a vacuum. It is, we know, only by knowing others that we can know ourselves.

Our Sense of Self and Others: Does reading increase our social and psychological IQ?

(8) David Mikics and Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid and noted reading researcher, argue that reading is necessary for developing a self. Through the privacy, the seriousness, the contemplation and the reflection that reading demands we can learn the lessons about human identity that we need to imagine and develop a sustained self. Adding to Mikics and Wolf’s ideas, McMaster argues that it is in reading that we are exposed to diverse and complicated versions of the self that allow us to build our own identities (44). Recent research suggests that reading literature, at least, increases our empathy and our ability to understand other people and social life (Murphy Paul). Reading, it seems, is not just for understanding of a text but also for understanding and constructing our self.

(9) Without this deep reading process, will we find ourselves more shallow, less engaged and less thoughtful? And, if so, what will a society of distracted, fast paced, quickly bored participants look like? Google? The world of Google? The Shallows that Nicholas Carr envisions? A world of Artificial Intelligence? Or something we have yet to imagine?

The Mechanics

(10) Reading is not innate to humans but a learning process that is often difficult and challenging. Novice readers have to develop skills in interpreting the symbols of the alphabet, decoding these symbols when they are grouped together, and creating meaningful units from symbols in word, sentence, paragraph and essay form. And, every context has a different set of “cues” that the reader must be cognizant of in order to increase their comprehension.  A reader is a constructor of knowledge not a recipient (Wolf, 2007). This combination of attention, focus, work and creative imagination, as well as time, depends on the entire brain (Keller, Carpenter, & Just, 2001). And that construction depends on the structure and content of the text. If the text’s structure or subject matter changes, then so does the construction.

(11)Sven Birkets argues that a good read only comes through directed concentration and focus. Victor Nell, in contrast, argues that skimmers also take much pleasure from their reading as well. Some research seems to suggest that slow reading does lead to greater comprehension while other research suggests that skimming can work to help keep your attention which might lead to better understanding than if you are zoning out from boredom from a deep read (Love).

(12) Skimming is most useful when we use tools that are in the structure of the text, like our knowledge that the first sentence of a paragraph tends to give us clues about what comes next. And, we know that repeated exposure to words and ideas in specific content areas helps us to decode and understand the text more quickly than those who don’t have the experience (Love).  Skimming texts in content areas that we are familiar with seems more likely to lead to comprehension. Skimming in an unfamiliar content area is probably a recipe for disaster.

(13) Once a reader has mastered or at least has developed some skill in the actual reading process, the printed text works its magic. Texts are linear and are organized systematically to engage the reader in a active, attentive, structured way that enhances and reinforces logical thinking, problem solving and reasoning. And, once a reader is familiar with and has learned that order, it is reinforced text after text. The structural rules of reading do NOT change, allowing readers to focus more and more on the meaning once the structure is learned.

(14) Moreover, as the reader constructs meaning, the reader is her/himself being constructed.  This reciprocity means that the text matters not only in how we construct meaning but in how we construct ourself (or are in fact, constructed, as Nicholas Carr might argue).

(15) One cannot help but ask how all of these process will be altered by(DC)?  And what might be lost and/or gained?

Part II

Digital Culture’s influence

(16) The world of digital culture is one that is fast paced, disruptive (not linear), visually stimulating, interactive, information filled (overfilled and overflowing), flexible and always, always on. In some ways, it is the opposite of book culture. In digital culture (DC), we scroll through pages looking for tidbits of information. In reading, we slowly peruse sentences arranged in a logical order to construct well-thought out and proven arguments.  In DC we jump from text to picture to phone message to facebook page to google search to tweet. In texts we move from word, to word, to word, to word in a systematic and logical order that does not vary. All there is in a text is words. In DC, all mediums are available and could be simultaneously on (sound, visual, textual).  When you are bored with a book, you zone out, you look out the window, you fall asleep. When you are bored on line, you just open another tab, send an email, switch to a video, look at your texts. Post something on the pinterest page. The number of options available are literally unlimited and endlessly distracting.

(17) The unlimited nature of the internet is exciting. It can lead to endless and varied exploration. You might start on the page about your homework assignment on the constitution, for example, and find yourself looking at the Supreme Court’s home page, a video of one of the justices giving a lecture, a picture of the constitution itself which might take you to a vignette about Thomas Jefferson and then maybe you’ll find yourself reading about his slave owning which takes you to amazon to look at the most recent book on this topic and then you see a movie that’s related and wait there is an ad you’ve just got to click on, that pair of boots you’ve been wanting is on sale . . . And, if it’s not enough that we can flit all over the net at the push of a button (or now at a voice command) we can encounter an unedited, uncensored, unfiltered world where quantity far outweighs quality.

Evaluating Meaning

(18) The skills required to evaluate the quality in the endless deluge of quantity are ones that require sustained contemplation, reflection, executive functioning, problem solving and focus (skills we associate with deep reading of books), not to mention significant self-control to resist clicking on that ad for the boots. These skills seem unlikely to be developed while surfing the internet. . . And if research studies are correct that indicate that 2 and 3 year olds are already net proficient, it is going to be very hard to teach those skills prior to net mastery. It is hard to imagine successfully teaching two year olds to be contemplative, and their brains are not developed enough for executive functioning, something that doesn’t really mature until we are in our 20’s.  

(19) It might be in the books that the wisdom lies, but it is in the DC that the bells and whistles call. Young children whose brains are more concrete than adults might suffer even more from early exposure because they do not get a chance to develop some of these higher order functions, instead learning to multi task, to gather information, to shift attention quickly but not to engage in any deep thought. Knowledge acquisition is not the same as knowing something.

(20) Researcher are offering some evidence that DC can be a place of analysis and problem solving. Small, Moody and others found that Net savvy individuals actually show more brain activation in their internet searches then in reading texts. Extrapolating from the increased firing of the brain to increased cognitive functioning, however, is not without its problems. We do not know what increased firing indicates. All we can go on is supposition.

(21) We read to develop and sustain our cognitive processes, to exercise our brains, to develop, shape and understand our self. All of these process require time, concentration and focus, characteristics that tend to be solely lacking in the world of digital culture (DC). And, to the extent that we can bring the skills of contemplation, reasoning and analysis to bear, it requires enormous reserves of energy and attention that many of us don’t have or are in the process of losing, if self reports are to be any measure.

(22) The problem and the promise of DC for reading are hard to separate. It’s like a treasure chest that if you dig too deep might bury you.  And yet, the treasure is so appealing, and if you are careful you just might get filthy rich.  The problem is we don’t know where the balance between the riches and being buried lies.

Works Cited

Birkerts, Sven. “Reading in a Digital Age.” The American Scholar. March 1, 2010. Web. Sept 30, 2014.

Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. New York: Norton & Co. Print. 2011

Greenberg, Gary. “A Mind of Its Own: Resisting the Tyranny of the Brain.” Harpers Magazine. June 2008. 83- Web. Sept 30, 2014

Love, Jessica. “Reading Fast and Slow.” The American Scholar. March 1, 2012. Web. Sept 30, 2014.

McMaster, Juliet.  “Why Read”, English Studies in Canada, June 1 2013. Web. Oct 29, 2014.

Menand, Louis. “Live and Learn.: The New Yorker, June 6, 2011, Web. Oct 29, 2014.

Mikics, David. “In Praise of (Offline) Slow Reading.” New York Times. Jan 3, 2014. Web. Sept 30, 2014.

Murphy Paul, Annie, “Your Brain on Fiction.” New York Times. www.nytimes.com, march 18, 2012, Web. Oct 29, 2014.

Nell, Victor. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. Print.

Nell, Victor. “The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure: Needs and Gratifications.” Reading Research Quarterly, Winter 1988. 23.1. 6-50. Web. Sept 30, 2014.

Small, Gary W. Teena D. Moody et al. “Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation During Internet Searching”. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry, 17.2, Feb. 2009. Web. Sept. 30, 2014.

Underwood-Edge, Christy. “Making Meaning with Readers and Texts: A Narrative Inquiry into Two Beginning English Teachers Meaning Making from Classroom Events”.  Scholar Commons. Jan, 2011. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Wolf, M. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.

Wolf, Maryanne and Mirit Barzillai. “The Importance of Deep Reading.” Educational Leadership. March 2009, 32-37. Web. Sept 30, 2014.