3 ms·

It's less about depth vs fluff than sustained focus and engagement vs scattered, rapid micro-doses of information. Yes, many people read both tweets and novels,

It's less about depth vs fluff than sustained focus and engagement vs scattered, rapid micro-doses of information. Yes, many people read both tweets and novels, but they have different demands and the brain adapts. Somebody who exclusively reads tweets could be less adapted to effectively engaging with a novel than somebody who reads both novels and tweets, and both people would be less effective than somebody who exclusively reads novels. That hierarchy would in turn be inverted with respect to effectiveness at consuming rapid, scattered chunks of information. I'm not a neuroscientist, I just don't think it makes sense to say "well that can't be true because not reading novels for a while also makes you worse at reading novels". Identifying an additional cause for a given symptom doesn't disprove the validity of all other causes.

dpark 8y ago
The problem is the utter lack of evidence for the claim. The assertion that reading tweets makes it harder to read novels is not supported by any evidence I’m aware of. You can find plenty of people saying “I stopped reading books because of [X,Y, or Z] and now it’s harder to read books”. But the common thread there is not X, Y, or Z. It’s “I stopped reading books”. The idea that “adaptation” to one type of reading makes other types of reading harder doesn’t sound unreasonable but that doesn’t mean it’s actually true. Adaptation to running doesn’t exactly make walking harder.
- longerthoughts 8y ago
  > The idea that “adaptation” to one type of reading makes other types of reading harder doesn’t sound unreasonable This is all I'm saying. Neuroplasticity is fairly well-documented and the author's theory seems plausible based on what we know about it. > You can find plenty of people saying “I stopped reading books because of [X,Y, or Z] and now it’s harder to read books”. Unless those people are all living off the grid, they were also reading through different mediums during the time that they weren't reading books. Again, seems reasonable that both have an impact, but you can hardly claim this as evidence for your theory and reject it as evidence for the author's theory given that both suggested factors were imposed simultaneously.
  - dpark 8y ago
    Stepping back for a second, do you agree with the statement “Not reading books for an extended period of time makes it harder to start read books again”? If so, how do you establish causal effect for some other action coupled with no longer reading books? Literally any action coupled with “I don’t read books anymore” will lead to “its hard to read books now”. The secondary action could be “I read Twitter” or “I got married” or “I lost 50 pounds”. It doesn’t matter because the condition for “hard to read books” is already met. This “X and Y implies Z” is a common pattern for falsely attributing effect Z of X to Y. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say “I still read books an hour every night, but it’s really hard now that I also read Twitter.“ I have heard plenty of people say “it’s hard to read books now that I stopped actually reading them consistently for reason X.” Maybe reading fluff online is a factor, but it’s probably a pretty small factor relative to the fact that you’re allowing a skill to atrophy when you don’t use it.

dpark 8y ago

The problem is the utter lack of evidence for the claim. The assertion that reading tweets makes it harder to read novels is not supported by any evidence I’m aware of. You can find plenty of people saying “I stopped reading books because of [X,Y, or Z] and now it’s harder to read books”. But the common thread there is not X, Y, or Z. It’s “I stopped reading books”. The idea that “adaptation” to one type of reading makes other types of reading harder doesn’t sound unreasonable but that doesn’t mean it’s actually true. Adaptation to running doesn’t exactly make walking harder.

longerthoughts 8y ago
> The idea that “adaptation” to one type of reading makes other types of reading harder doesn’t sound unreasonable This is all I'm saying. Neuroplasticity is fairly well-documented and the author's theory seems plausible based on what we know about it. > You can find plenty of people saying “I stopped reading books because of [X,Y, or Z] and now it’s harder to read books”. Unless those people are all living off the grid, they were also reading through different mediums during the time that they weren't reading books. Again, seems reasonable that both have an impact, but you can hardly claim this as evidence for your theory and reject it as evidence for the author's theory given that both suggested factors were imposed simultaneously.
- dpark 8y ago
  Stepping back for a second, do you agree with the statement “Not reading books for an extended period of time makes it harder to start read books again”? If so, how do you establish causal effect for some other action coupled with no longer reading books? Literally any action coupled with “I don’t read books anymore” will lead to “its hard to read books now”. The secondary action could be “I read Twitter” or “I got married” or “I lost 50 pounds”. It doesn’t matter because the condition for “hard to read books” is already met. This “X and Y implies Z” is a common pattern for falsely attributing effect Z of X to Y. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say “I still read books an hour every night, but it’s really hard now that I also read Twitter.“ I have heard plenty of people say “it’s hard to read books now that I stopped actually reading them consistently for reason X.” Maybe reading fluff online is a factor, but it’s probably a pretty small factor relative to the fact that you’re allowing a skill to atrophy when you don’t use it.