Editorial: A society that stops reading stops thinking

Neuroscientists have found that when people read, their brains don’t just process words — they simulate the story world. Functional imaging studies show that as a character in a book moves, sets goals or changes location, readers’ brains activate some of the same regions they would use to perform or imagine those actions in real life. In other words, to understand a story, the brain builds and constantly updates a lived simulation of it.

By contrast, social media rarely demands such deep simulation. Instead of sustaining a mental world, it delivers a rapid stream of novelty and cheap rewards — training the brain to skim, swipe and move on, rather than to linger, imagine and reflect.

One of those things sure sounds better than the other.

And yet recent data illustrate a shift in behavior