Reading is Not Normal

You know that feeling when something hits you like a bolt of lightning? When you hear a theory that sounds so right that you really don’t have to look too deeply into it to know that it’s valid? That happened over the Thanksgiving weekend, and no, it wasn’t the Qanon heresy that Thanksgiving was a Canadian holiday before liberals coopted it as a celebration of Indian largess.

One of our Thanksgiving guests was telling me about a podcast she heard on the drive to our house which posited that reading is contrary to our evolutionary development, and that this disconnect is a why so many people do not read beyond the extent needed, even in this age of mass literacy. It is also why so many students struggle with reading at a young age. It is just not something that comes naturally.

I had never considered this. From pouring over Curious George books at the Bethlehem Public Library, to struggling with a book my son Max recommended to me, reading has seemed a close second to breathing in importance in my life. The thought that I have been bucking the conditioning of generations never occurred to me. And yet, it makes so much sense.

Writing in even its earliest form did not begin until approximately 5000 years ago. If we start human history with the making of tools, humanity was pre-literate for 3 million years before we ever had to interpret squiggles on a stone tablet, or engraved stile. Our strategies for interacting with the world were hardwired during that time, and they did not include perusing otherwise meaningless jottings.

Throughout this time, we compiled information by what we saw and heard. It was limited in scope, and could be deceptive, but it was immediately accessible. The ability to “read” the world around us was essential for survival. We had to be able to react quickly and instinctively to the the visual and aural clues presented. Sitting on a rock staring intently at a piece of bark is hardly an effective strategy to enhance well-being.

Even once humanity started reading, it was primarily an elitist activity. Most people got along fine without it, thank you very much. Estimates suggest that no more than 10% of the world’s population was literate in ancient times. As of 1820, when the data is much better, that rate had soared to 12%. Though the rates in Europe were much higher, literacy there still was less than 50% (why would women need to read?). Even by the 1930’s only 70% of the U.S. population was literate. In other words, mass literacy is a very recent phenomenon (by 2015 it was up to 86%). 

Is it any wonder that people adapted to the visual arts revolution so quickly? Movies and television are perfect mediums for our primordial conditioning. The flow of moving images matches the world our ancestors inhabited. We instinctively know how to read the cues, and digest the information presented.

Sad as I am to say it, my friend Mark Megaw was correct. Teaching through visuals is the most compatible with this conditioning. At ACE legal conferences, Mark’s presentations, which incorporated eye-catching images and audience participation, were always the most memorable. I will note that since he was generally competing with such topics as bitcoin in the world of insurance and accounting for intercompany transfers, that’s faint praise indeed.      

I have always rebelled against the visual learning construct because I retain information better when I read it. But even I must admit that reading often does not result in long term retention. Though reading served me well as a student, and remains my primary leisure activity, it cannot compete with the images imprinted on my brain cells by movies (the frozen still at the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or Bogie in the rain in Casablanca, immediately jump to mind).

I cannot help but believe that in the span of human history, the reign of reading as the primary means of communicating ideas will be a short one. Reading has already shifted to an auxiliary of the presentation of news, not to mention social media. People still need to read, but it is more often as a header across the screen, or the clever (I use that word loosely) punchline of a meme.

The problem is that it is hard to get much depth into a Facebook post, at least depth that anyone will truly consider, and TV news lends itself much more to the polemical than it does to the factual. The reading of books, newspapers, magazine articles (and yes, even a lowly blog) remain the primary way to take a deep dive into any subject. I do not see that changing soon.

The flip side is that so many more people can be reached through TV and social media. I often forget how new these tools are. As we become more comfortable, we hopefully will get better at sifting the wheat from the chaff. That ability to discern needs to be incorporated into our educational system in much the same way that reading is.

Reading will reman an essential skill for a long time to come. However, denying our hardwiring for the visual is counterproductive. We need to embrace the techniques our ancestors used and adapt them to the world we live in today. Fighting those tendencies, as I have been prone to do, just isn’t going to cut it. I can see that now.