Stressed out? Feeling fragmented, distracted and disconnected?
Maybe you just need a bit o’ time with a good book. About 30 to 45 minutes, to be precise. There’s only one catch: You’ve got to read—really read—slowly, not skimming. The anecdotal result, say some advocates of the growing slow reading movement, is reduced stress and a renewed appreciation for (and ability to concentrate on) a good book.
Similar to the slow food movement (wherein dinner is made from scratch instead of a box), slow reading seeks a return to a simpler, pre-Internet age, a time when we got lost in the wonder of books and weren’t so distracted by online technology. “When I realized I read Twitter more than a book, I knew it was time for action,” says Diana La Counte, who formed a slow reading group in Orange County, Calif., a few years ago.
One of the things our online age has taught us, scientists suggest, is to read Internet text differently than we do text in a book. Instead of reading left to right, line by line—as we would a book—the Internet has yielded an F reading pattern. A 2006 study focused on the eye movements of study participants, for instance, and found that we tend to scan across the top of web pages, and then only halfway across the next few lines in an accelerating vertical plunge to the bottom of the web page.
We typically don’t connect with online text for deeper comprehension, then, but instead scan for key words that grab our fragmented attention. Given that tendency, it’s not too surprising that “reading” on the Internet tends to crater our attention spans instead of nourishing them. Sort of like junk food for the brain that tastes good for a moment but leaves us feeling even more disconnected and frazzled than we felt before we “ate” it.
Writing about the benefits of slow reading in The Wall Street Journal, Frida Sakaj says, “Slow readers list numerous benefits to a regular reading habit, saying it improves their ability to concentrate, reduces stress levels and deepens their ability to think, listen and empathize.”
Reduced stress, greater concentration and a deeper empathy for others? Personally, I have to say that I feel like a candidate for the many benefits of slow reading.
Or what we used to just call reading.
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