Brain Rust

We need way more mental stimulation

Reading—especially reading fiction—is good for you. “Fiction is the one form of writing that engages the whole mind, the emotions, the spirit, and the intellect.” So says Tony Daniel, editor in chief of Ark Press.

And yet this from a Kansas City newspaper: “No one under 50 years of age ever buys a book. Many homes in the state have a few books that grandma bought from peddlers. They would be thrown out with the garbage if they didn’t come in handy to slip under the little tots at the table.” Sound familiar? The quote is from … 1939. The lament about too little reading is not a new one.

It’s a worsening one, though. Today, young people—and some people old enough to know better—have pretty much given up reading in favor of small-screen staring. The consequences are well-documented, including shorter attention spans and mental rustiness in people too young to be rusty.

A primer on How to Succeed in Life could contain just one word: Read. By “succeed,” I mean function properly as a student, a citizen, an employee, a spouse, or assorted other categories of productive people. We have too many low-functioning people in our midst and most of them are non-readers.

It’s a creeping disaster. We used to see elementary children not doing well, not reading and writing at grade level. Now we see college students and latest generation employees underperforming. The kids grew up and the problem grew with them.

A tenured college professor, writing anonymously, recently observed, “Our average graduates literally cannot read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what was read. Just can’t do it. They don’t have the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read, and most certainly not the attention span to finish.”

You might shout, “So what’s the problem—not everyone has to enjoy reading!” No, but everyone must co-exist with people who failed to develop their brains as only reading and writing can. That’s a problem.

Reading and writing stimulate the part of the brain from which ideas spring and imagination soars, where social graces are grasped and personal integrity forms to nurture good work ethics and moral responsibility. Reading. Writing. Thinking. We need more of this triumvirate of skills that are superior in every way to video-watching, texting and emoji-clicking.

An outfit named Readeezy Books creates “high-interest, low-reading level” books that target “all students who struggle to read, including those with… literacy gaps.” That sounds great for teens and young adults with genuine learning disabilities. For the digitally distracted but otherwise able person, such books are an indictment.

The Readeezy folks note that parts of the brain that are seldom used tend to lose neural connectivity and wither away. “These Hi-Lo stories are important because they motivate young people to read and, simply put, grow their brains.”

We need more brain-growing. Can society rescue itself with renewed emphasis on reading? It might be too late. Our culture has almost turned the page.