Aristotle's good life: Productivity, leisure, and contemplation
Recently I listened to an episode of Ezra Klein's podcast, "This is your brain on 'deep reading.' It's pretty magnificant." In the episode, Maryann Wolf -- a scholar who studies the neuroscience of reading -- argues we are losing our ability (or, perhaps more accurately: our mindset ) to read deeply, in part because we've shifted primarily to become a culture of screen readers rather than print readers. Wolf thinks of "deep reading" as a pinnacle among various types of reading, a kind of reading that she connects with critical analysis, empathy, attentiveness, and insight--and she suggests that a generation of screen readers are not necessarily learning this type of reading. Digital reading, she suggests, encourages skimming, distraction, divided reading. During the episode, she explains: The affordances of the digital medium, which enhance the speed in which we’re reading and focusing on vast amounts of information, multitasking and being enter...