Professor Jennifer Cooke (Loughborough University)
We live in what’s called an ‘attention economy’: Insta, YouTube, TikTok and all the other sites want our eyes on them. They want our attention. They want to monetise it.
But what do we get in return? Even if it is fun or informative, the way we use this technology impacts upon us. Our attention spans get shorter. Doom scrolling feels bad. We are annoyed when we fall down a rabbit-hole of reels we are not even that interested in seeing. Our swipe-right mentality means we flick from one thing to another to another. What happens, as a result, is that we become bad at paying attention well.
This is where reading is so valuable. Really reading. Sitting down and reading a novel, or a long article. Without us even realising, such absorption is training us. Just as smart phones and social media sites train us in one way, proper reading trains us in another. It teaches us to carry a narrative or an argument in our heads. It encourages us to think deeply, to pay attention. To notice that detail, because it might be important later. To think about the other side of an argument. To wonder whether what that character thinks is love is rather self-delusion.
So, every time we really, deeply read, we can think of it as an act of resistance and reclamation, sharpening our minds and stretching out our attention span. It’s not that we should scorn technology, but it is valuable to know we can counter its more negative repercussions with the power of good books.
