Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World

　　《普魯斯特與烏賊》的作者瑪莉安沃夫（Maryanne Wolf），於十年前提出嶄新的閱讀理論，探討腦部演化與閱讀的關係。如今科技日新月異，她再次提出數位化閱讀與科技應用，將如何改變我們大腦運作的方式。在書中提出幾個問題讓讀者思考。



　　1.簡短的社群語言，能否啟動大腦對於文字的深度思考與分析過程？

　　2.對於大量的資訊，我們能否立即反應？是否也會改變我們對訊息處理的方式？

　　3.數位時代會不會影響我們批判分析與同理思考的能力？



　　大腦透過適應而發展出的閱讀分析能力，正面對快速的科技變革；簡短的文字訊息將取代邏輯歸納推演的文字書寫。基於世界的重大變化，作者瑪莉安提出她的看法，利用神經科學、文學、教育、科技、哲學與大量歷史事實，總結出新時代的閱讀分析理論，看我們的大腦如何發展出更具高效能的運作，並探討對我們的影響。



　　這是一本關於書寫與閱讀的科普書，告訴我們該如何應變、並保護我們深度思考的能力；另一方面也教導我們如何在孩子的心中播下閱讀的種子。一旦我們減弱閱讀感知世界的能力，將會是重大的損失。（文 / 博客來編譯）

The author of the acclaimed Proust and the Squid follows up with a lively, ambitious, and deeply informative book that considers the future of the reading brain and our capacity for critical thinking, empathy, and reflection as we become increasingly dependent on digital technologies.

A decade ago, Maryanne Wolf's Proust and the Squid revealed what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way we think and feel. Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium.

Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us--her beloved readers--to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums. Wolf raises difficult questions, including:

• Will children learn to incorporate the full range of "deep reading" processes that are at the core of the expert reading brain?
• Will the mix of a seemingly infinite set of distractions for children's attention and their quick access to immediate, voluminous information alter their ability to think for themselves?
• With information at their fingertips, will the next generation learn to build their own storehouse of knowledge, which could impede the ability to make analogies and draw inferences from what they know?
• Will all these influences, in turn, change the formation in children and the use in adults of "slower" cognitive processes like critical thinking, personal reflection, imagination, and empathy that comprise deep reading and that influence both how we think and how we live our lives?
• Will the chain of digital influences ultimately influence the use of the critical analytical and empathic capacities necessary for a democratic society?
• How can we preserve deep reading processes in future iterations of the reading brain?
• Who are the "good readers" of every epoch?

Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and over-reliance on technology are never just about children--Wolf herself has found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been impacted as she has become, inevitably, increasingly dependent on screens.

Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education, technology, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains and our most essential intellectual capacities--and what this could mean for our future.