ERIC Number: EJ1105218
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Aug
Pages: 6
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1052-5629
EISSN: N/A
Some Semi-Deep Thoughts about Deep Reading: Rejoinder to "Digital Technology and Student Cognitive Development: The Neuroscience of the University Classroom"
Mannheimer, Steve
Journal of Management Education, v40 n4 p405-410 Aug 2016
The author of this thought-provoking article joins an impressive cohort of current commentators and scholars united in their concern over the state of the art of reading. Mostly, they are concerned with the sustained, silent, generally solitary process of reading in which the reader is deeply focused on and immersed in the text. Their fear is that today's students lack the cognitive wherewithal for deep, immersive reading and thus will never fully experience the profound learning that college can provide. Implicit in this critique is the assumption that college-level learning is intimately, perhaps inextricably, conjoined with the idea of the book. Books that contain a deeply structured array of information, knowledge (interpretations of information), and ideas (the principles distilled from this or related knowledge). Today's students can't handle it, because students have been mesmerized by the near-telepathic allure of "digital reading,"--texts, tweets and e-mails drizzling from their smartphones. Given a 900-page tome on macroeconomics, their attention fades soon after the 140th character and floats away altogether after the third or fourth page. Mannheimer adds "It's not quite their fault"--reading that requires more convoluted or deliberate cognitive processing skills required for in-depth, if not always deeply immersed, reading are disciplined practices that students acquire only after years of training, which probably needs to begin well before college, even before high school, and well before their first tweet. [For "Digital Technology and Student Cognitive Development: The Neuroscience of the University Classroom," see EJ1105092.]
Descriptors: Neurosciences, Cognitive Development, Reading Processes, Macroeconomics, Cognitive Processes, Telecommunications, College Students, Information Technology
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A