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activated circuits in your brain
[00:03] that took thousands of years to develop
the ones required for reading.
[00:08] We think of language as natural
and reading is written language,
[00:14] so it must be natural. But it isn't.
[00:17] It isn't natural at all.
[00:19] Scientific studies indicate
that a neurotypical brain is born
[00:23] with the circuitry that allows
our eyes to see
[00:25] and our vocal cords
to produce sounds,
[00:28] but it doesn't innately have
the ability to read.
[00:31] From an evolutionary time scale,
our brain hasn't had enough time
[00:34] to develop a dedicated reading brain.
[00:38] And so to build
a reading brain network,
[00:40] we co-opt parts of the brain involved
in vision and auditory processing,
[00:46] and language
and attention and affect.
[00:49] The Sumerian cuneiform symbols
are thought to be one
[00:52] of the earliest writing systems
in the world,
[00:55] dating back to around 3300 BC.
[00:58] Around the same time, though, Egyptians
started developing their hieroglyphics.
[01:04] Symbols evolved over time.
[01:07] The more we read and wrote,
the more sophisticated
[01:09] they became becoming the letters
and characters we recognise today.
[01:14] Scientists now know
that reading activates the brain
[01:18] so that letters and words become
associated with sounds and meanings.
[01:23] Reading is really
a whole brain process.
[01:26] It involves activation
and all four lobes of the cortex.
[01:32] The process of developing
a reading brain alters everything
[01:36] from brain activity to brain
structure and brain connectivity.
[01:43] And the language we read
also shapes our brain.
[01:47] Chinese characters, for instance, are
an example of the logographic system.
[01:52] Each object or idea is represented by
a symbol rather than
[01:55] by a set of letters of the alphabet.
[01:57] Research indicates that learning
logographic writing systems activates
different areas of the brain
[02:04] than learning an alphabet-based
language like English.
[02:07] The areas involved in visual memory and
visual association do more of the work.
[02:12] This theory was corroborated
after scientists studied
[02:15] a bilingual patient
who knew both Chinese and English.
[02:19] The man suffered a massive stroke,
which affected some areas of his brain,
[02:23] including his ability
to read Chinese,
[02:26] but astonishingly, his proficiency
in English remained intact.
[02:31] It's a beautiful
[02:32] example of how the brain circuit
reflects the requirements of Chinese,
[02:40] which inevitably means more
visual memory and visual processing
[02:46] of those beautifully intricate
symbols or characters.
[02:52] Whatever the language,
reading not only impacts the brain,
[02:56] but it also affects us
on a physical level.
[02:59] We might feel in our guts the
nervousness or the pain of a character.
[03:05] And I mean that not only like I feel it
inside me, but I mean that literally.
[03:10] Like the anterior insula, which is
responsible for gastromotoric
[03:17] movement for feelings
of nausea and pain and discomfort
[03:21] is also the part of the brain
that's associated with
[03:25] many of the empathic processes.
[03:28] And the brain is very adaptable.
[03:31] Evidence suggests
that it's already changing
as a result of new technologies.
[03:35] Reading on a phone or tablet
is generally passive scrolling,
[03:39] often interrupted by messages
and alerts.
[03:43] When we read on screens,
we tend to skim,
[03:45] and when we skim, we're more
susceptible to misinformation.
[03:49] We need to support individuals
[03:51] in being able to think critically
about the things that they're reading,
[03:54] because that's fundamental to
a democracy is our ability to analyse
[03:59] and think deeply about the information
that's that we're consuming.
[04:04] Some academic research even suggests
that children who use cell phones
[04:08] from an early age perform worse
in school later in life.
[04:12] At eight years of age, the amount
of digital exposure predicted
[04:17] their attentional executive function
processing and academic performance.
[04:23] And it's a negative.
The more digital, the worse academic.
[04:28] If you can imagine if that brain
is constantly being distracted
[04:33] and hyper stimulated,
you're going to have them not able
[04:37] to really move from one stimulus
to the next
[04:44] without a desire for ever quicker
intervals between stimuli.
[04:49] So then you have kids going offline
and saying they're bored.
[04:54] It's a relatively new field
of research,
[04:56] and some studies suggest
that monitored
[04:58] and education-focused screen time
can be beneficial to children.
[05:02] For parents concerned
about navigating the digital world,
[05:05] the advice is to go back to basics.
[05:07] The antidote to all that's happening
is the simplest, most beautiful one,
[05:13] and that is to have
our children immersed
[05:15] in reading and have a reading life.
[05:18] Our parents
and teachers all have to help,
[05:21] you know, they have to model,
they have to read to their child.
[05:25] They have to love it themselves.
[05:28] And this is likely to have benefits
beyond the individual reader.
[05:32] The power of deep reading is
really fundamental to our humanity.
[05:37] When we read deeply, we change
our brains and we change who we are.
[05:42] And that process of changing
the minds and hearts of individuals
[05:46] changes society and allows us to
build bigger, more beautiful futures.