When I was growing up I can remember telling my parents I was bored. My comments were always met with the same responses, either ‘go outside’ or ‘read a book’. I had nothing else to do so I began to read. I used to devour books, novels, poems, anything I could get my hands on. Now the time I devote to really concentrated reading is becoming scarce. More and more reading is becoming internet driven. I usually start with reading some news, check my emails, then my mind wonders down the page and all of a sudden I am reading about the weather or looking up a holiday destination.

Neuroscientists have an explanation for this phenomenon. When we learn something quick and new, we get a dopamine rush; functional-MRI brain scans show the brain’s pleasure centers lighting up. In humans, emails also satisfy that pleasure center, as do Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat.

In Nicholas Carr’s book, “The Shallows – What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.” he notes that young people especially, are showing a precipitous decline in the amount of time spent reading. He says, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” A 2016 Nielsen report calculates that the average American devotes more than 10 hours per day to consuming media—including radio, TV, and all electronic devices. That constitutes 65 percent of waking hours, leaving little time for the much harder work of focused concentration on reading.

This school holidays please give your boys time to get lost in a book, time for real, concentrated reading. I know those stockings need filling with a book or two.

Aleca Bradshaw – Learning Enhancement Team Leader

Carr, N. G. (2010). The shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. New York: W.W. Norton.