HOW we read is maybe more important, even, than WHAT we read: The importance of "deep reading"

My 'to be read' pile -- honest to goodness old-fashioned books,
plus my Kindle (limited connection to the internet)

I start my day with words.

Well. With word games. On my phone.

Wordle then Spelling Bee then Connections then Strands. All via the New York Times, in which I might scan the headlines and might sometimes read the full stories. But the word games are a daily ritual — a brain warm-up for the day ahead. I move through each puzzle at my own pace, sometimes jumping between them if I get stuck, and often listening to early-morning radio in the background.

Sometimes, the words coming at me over the airwaves capture my attention and then my imagination and then I am diverted down a thinking road sparked by more words, other words, words that paint a picture of... something out there in the larger world. And then I might get bored with that spoken-word-painted story and I return to the word game on the small screen of my phone.

Throughout the day, I read many words on a variety of screens — my phone, my laptop, an old iPad — but I rarely read a physical book. That I leave for the late evening, once in bed.

I love that time between getting into bed and turning out the light. The words I read on those pages at that time seem different to me, take me deeper into a longer story and are my end-of-day ritual — a transition from screen-time daytime to page-bound nighttime.

I am a different reader of words in different media. The same person, but a different reader.

Screen-reader me dashes along the lines, skips over words, tries to get to the end, the meaning without taking the time to read every single word. Get to the point, I scream in my head. Just take me to the end of what you are saying and wanting me to know. I don’t have time for all your words!

But page-reader me embodies a slower long-ago time when screens were not yet present and time unfolded page by page as stories took shape across several hundred pages and many thousands of words. And remembering, I sink back into that time and go deep into the story on the page in my hands.

Reading — deep reading — is more important now than it has ever been. And I learned recently that my differentiation between screen reading and book reading is not just a quirk, it is science, because studies show that the medium in or on which we read words influences how we relate to it:

• Scrolling on our screens across words and images and clicking live links creates what has been dubbed the “juggler’s brain” — rapid movement across the surface of our thinking capacity.
• Holding a book and sustaining our attention across the pages of a longer argument (story) helps to build an architecture within the wiring of the mind that is robust enough for imagination and reasoning, for abstraction and debate to take root.
• When that architecture is not built, we are at risk of being serf to the new feudal lords “who control the symbols — platforms, algorithms, influencers — [and who] shape belief, while the rest of us scroll through the pictures.”

Awareness of a problem or an issue is the first step towards addressing it effectively: I know that I am a different reader online than on the page. I know that it is on the page that I ‘deep read’. I know that ‘deep reading’ encourages critical thinking. So. To shore up my mind’s architecture for reasoning, debate and critical thinking, I know, unequivocally, that I must withstand the easy reward of online words and must read more on the page.

Our world is full of problems and issues. Our world needs our critical thought more than ever. We know that change always begins with ourselves. Reading an old-fashioned book seems a pretty easy way to contribute, even a tiny bit, to an improved state for our ourselves and our neighbours, no?

NOTE: The link above takes you to a pdf copy of an article from the Globe and Mail/January 15, 2026 titled “The power of the printed word: When we stop reading, we forget how to think” by Rick Lash, a Toronto-based psychologist and management consultant writing on leadership, psychology, and culture. If you subscribe to the Globe, you can read the article online here.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.