cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17499284
Brain structure can tell us a lot about reading skills. Importantly, though, the brain is malleable — it changes when we learn a new skill or practice an already acquired one.
For instance, young adults who studied language intensively increased their cortical thickness in language areas. Similarly, reading is likely to shape the structure of the left Heschl’s gyrus and temporal pole. So, if you want to keep your Heschl’s thick and thriving, pick up a good book and start reading.
[…] it’s worth considering what might happen to us as a species if skills like reading become less prioritised. Our capacity to interpret the world around us and understand the minds of others would surely diminish. In other words, that cosy moment with a book in your armchair isn’t just personal – it’s a service to humanity.
The last paragraph of the synopsis above kinda details why this might matter - areas of the brain don’t have such defined and limited purposes as musculature.
A recent similar study found that the area of the brain responsible for spatial location is smaller in people who rely on sat-nav exclusively. That might not seem like much of a problem, as everyone has one in their pocket now, so so what? Well, it turns out that that area is also responsible for mapping our social landscape too, and if it shrinks, our ability to maintain larger and more complex social groups suffers. The ability to read is quite a specific skill, but strongly linked to the kind of imagination used to create these complex worlds and characters in your imagination - how would loosing that ability affect designers/artists/architects etc?
I have no doubt the research is useful but this article just seems like speculative “scare mongering” to try to make the research seem like it’s “more important” to non-scientists than it may seem. And it may spawn a bunch of “want to use your satnav better? scientists say you should read more!” type fluff articles.
Ha, yeah, to be fair, I didn’t read the article, I just looked at the research paper it was based on. I’ve given up on a lot of science reporting, it sensationalises things from otherwise sensible studies far too often