Slow down and think

 "Books slow me down and make me think, and the Internet speeds me up."

Student, quoted in Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf

That student, whoever it might be, has already learned something important. Books slow us down. Books make us think. Both are good things.

Most of us, because we are busy or just impatient, usually want to do more more quickly. We try to do two or more things at once. We speed through one task in order to move on to the next one. Even in leisure time, most people today have their phones in their hands when watching television or even when engaging in conversation. This need for speed is not necessarily something new — some of us remember Cliff's Notes, which made it possible to get the gist of a book without having to actually read the book — but technology has made it easier to speed up our lives. Not just easier, but all but unavoidable.

It has become difficult to slow down even when we want to, as with a good book or, for that matter, a leisurely walk in the park. I try to spend a few hours each day reading books, yet even with this habit formed over the years, I still find it difficult to focus, especially on difficult books, for more than a few minutes at a time. I am always eager to take a break for a cup of tea or a game of Spider. So I can easily understand why books, not e-books but real books, have become more of a challenge for anyone who spends a lot more time with their phones or tablets each day than I do.

There is a conviction in our culture today that students who do not have a personal computer in their classrooms are somehow disadvantaged. Perhaps the real disadvantage falls on those who do not spend enough time each day with books they can hold in their hands and turn the pages one by one. Compared to reading — or skimming — on the Internet, this seems slow. But, as the student said, it makes us think, and by pausing to turn pages it gives us time to think. Books make it easier to reread interesting passages, to underline if we are so inclined, to bookmark our place, and to remember what we read.