We are what we eat, no doubt, but we are also every book read, every story lived in this sea of letters and every sensation lived throughout a thousand a novel, people are all that lives and also everything that is evoked in each of them. these stories that, with their characters, their struggles and their majestic universes, bring us another kind of happiness.
Jorge Luis Borges said that paradise must be something of a great infinite library, an idyllic image in which we will surely match all those we see in the healthy exercise of reading a daily ritual in which we eat to survive, progress, learn and, in turn, be a little freer.
“Today’s real university consists of a collection of books ??Thomas Carlyle?
Therefore, to say that we are also all the books read is in no way an exaggeration, in the trunk of our most striking memories of childhood there are usually the titles and novels that, in a way, have marked our life before and after. to live a book with as much intensity, joy and pleasure as those first readings that inspired us so much.
This early foray into the fantasy world, in the mystery-filled forests, the seas of adventure or the universes surrounded by magic are incorporated word by word and picture into the deepest nooks and crannies of our emotional brain to determine much of what it defines. Are we, therefore, much of all that we have never seen with our eyes, but which we feel with our hearts and draw in our minds with the candles of imagination and the ears of a sea of letters?
A study published in the Journal of Business Administration confirmed a fact that we all take for granted, but which unfortunately is not always respected: do students accustomed to reading from a young age have much higher scores in critical thinking, creativity, reflection, metacognition and writing?What we are seeing today, however, is that our young people are reading today, but they are not practicing what is called “deep reading. “
Deep reading is defined as the delicate, slow and engaging process in which we fully immerse ourselves in what we read without haste, external pressures or the need to rush or advance events along the pages. book capturing the richness of the text, to a point where simple decoding of words allows us to reach a sensory and emotional state.
Through in-depth reading, we also capture the details of the text, the pleasure of the story and the skill of the writer, however, and here is the most interesting thing, as the experts explain, this type of reading generates an incredible process in our brain. : Synchronizes For example, brain centers associated with speech, vision, and hearing adapt to deep reading.
In turn, the Broca area is intensely activated, responsible for the perception of rhythm and syntax; as well as Wernicke’s mastery, related to our perception of words and their meanings; Angular rotation, which regulates perception and the use of language, is also more interconnected. All these processes and many others generate an impressive rhythm where deep reading leads us to a carousel of feelings and emotions that leave permanent traces in our brains.
It’s a sensational thing
According to an interesting New York Times article over the past year, adult book sales have fallen by about 10. 3%, while for children, in turn, they have increased by 2. 1%. On the other hand, e-books fell much more, almost 21. 8%. However, and here are the most incredible data, digital audiobooks have increased by 35. 3% and to our surprise, they continue to increase.
“An open book is a talking brain; closed, a friend waiting; forgotten, a soul that forgives; destroyed, a crying heart?. – Hindu Proverb
Psychologists are very clear about why this phenomenon where the person prefers to “read the book for him” rather than himself. Our minds are increasingly distracted, we have to do many things at once: look at the cell phone, update our social networks, drink coffee, watch TV, watch the arrival sign on our subway, read the mailbox in the mail?
In turn, there is another little detail recently collected by Stephen King: people have lost the pleasure of passing the pages of a book, just put it in your ear to have your hands free and use your mobile phone, all this means that in recent months, the sale of audiobooks has increased rapidly, they are perfect for multitasking , since you only have to put on your headphones to have your eyes and hands ready and ready to continue performing various functions. “perfect, ” but unfortunately, there is no doubt.
We lose the pleasure of deep reading, and many of our children will also be orphaned by this exceptional homage of immersing themselves in the most physical and wonderful entrails of a book in the traditional way: turning the pages, one by one, from a huge library or in perfect silence of the night and in bed.
May these customs, these goods of human well-being and the psychological, emotional and cultural richness that, whether we like it or not, make us better people disappear.