為何傳統(tǒng)紙質(zhì)閱讀和寫作更有益于大腦

Some tests show that reading from a hard copy allows better concentration， while taking longhand notes versus typing onto laptops increases conceptual understanding and 1）retention.

My son is 18 months old， and I’ve been reading books with him since he was born. I say “reading”， but I really mean “l(fā)ooking at”—not to mention grasping， dropping， throwing， 2）cuddling， chewing， and everything else a tiny human being likes to do. Over the last six months， though， he has begun not simply to look but also to recognise a few letters and numbers. He calls a capital Y a “yak” after a picture on the door of his room； a capital H is “hedgehog”； a capital K， “kangaroo”； and so on.

Reading， unlike speaking， is a young activity in evolutionary terms. Humans have been speaking in some form for hundreds of thousands of years； we are born with the ability to acquire speech etched into our 3）neurones. The earliest writing， however， emerged only 6，000 years ago， and every act of reading remains a version of what my son is learning： identifying the special species of physical objects known as letters and words， using much the same neural circuits as we use to identify trees， cars， animals and telephone boxes.

It’s not only words and letters that we process as objects. Texts themselves， so far as our brains are concerned， are physical landscapes. So it shouldn’t be surprising that we respond differently to words printed on a page compared to words appearing on a screen； or that the key to understanding these differences lies in the geography of words in the world.

For her new book， Words Onscreen： The Fate of Reading in a Digital World， linguistics professor Naomi Baron conducted a survey of reading preferences among over 300 university students across the U.S.， Japan， Slovakia and Germany. When given a choice between media ranging from printouts to smartphones， laptops， e-readers and desktops， 92% of respondents replied that it was hard copy that best allowed them to concentrate.

This isn’t a result likely to surprise many editors， or anyone else who works closely with text. While writing this article， I gathered my thoughts through a version of the same principle： having collated my notes onscreen， I printed said notes， scribbled all over the resulting printout， argued with myself in the margins， placed 4）exclamation marks next to key points， spread out the scrawled result—and from this landscape 5）hewed a （hopefully） coherent argument.

What exactly was going on here？ Age and habit played their part. But there is also a growing scientific recognition that many of a screen’s unrivalled assets—search， boundless and bottomless capacity， links and leaps and seamless navigation—are either unhelpful or downright destructive when it comes to certain kinds of reading and writing.

Across three experiments in 2013， researchers Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer compared the effectiveness of students taking longhand notes versus typing onto laptops. Their conclusion： the relative slowness of writing by hand demands heavier “mental lifting”， forcing students to summarise rather than to quote 6）verbatim—in turn tending to increase conceptual understanding， application and retention.

In other words， friction is good—at least so far as the remembering brain is concerned. Moreover， the textured variety of physical writing can itself be significant. In a 2012 study at Indiana University， psychologist Karin James tested five-year-old children who did not yet know how to read or write by asking them to reproduce a letter or shape in one of three ways： typed onto a computer， drawn onto a blank sheet， or traced over a dotted outline. When the children were drawing freehand， an 7）MRI scan during the test showed activation across areas of the brain associated in adults with reading and writing. The other two methods showed no such activation.

Similar effects have been found in other tests， suggesting not only a close link between reading and writing， but that the experience of reading itself differs between letters learned through handwriting and letters learned through typing. Add to this the help that the physical geography of a printed page or the heft of a book can provide to memory， and you’ve got a conclusion neatly matching our embodied natures： the varied， demanding， motor-skill-activating physicality of objects tends to light up our brains brighter than the placeless， weightless scrolling of words on screens.

In many ways， this is an unfair result， effectively comparing print at its best to digital at its worst. Spreading my scrawled-upon printouts across a desk， I’m not just accessing data； I’m reviewing the 8）idiosyncratic geography of something I created， carried and adorned. But I researched my piece online， I’m going to type it up onscreen， and my readers will enjoy an onscreen environment expressly designed to gift resonance： a geography， a context. Screens are at their worst when they 9）ape and mourn paper. At their best， they’re something free to engage and activate our wondering minds in ways undreamt of a century ago.

Above all， it seems to me， we must abandon the notion that there is only one way of reading， or that technology and paper are engaged in some implacable war. We’re lucky enough to have both growing self-knowledge and an opportunity to make our options as fit for purpose as possible—as slippery and searchable or slow with friction as the occasion demands.

I can’t imagine teaching my son to read in a house without any physical books， pens or paper. But I can’t imagine denying him the limitless words and worlds a screen can bring to him either. I hope I can help him learn to make the most of both—and to type/copy/paste/sketch/scribble precisely as much as he needs to make each idea his own.

一些測(cè)試表明紙質(zhì)閱讀有利于讀者更好地集中精神，與使用筆記本電腦輸入筆記相比，手寫筆記更能增進(jìn)人們對(duì)概念的理解和記憶。

我兒子現(xiàn)在十八個(gè)月大，自他出生以來，我便一直和他一起閱讀。雖然我說“閱讀”，但我指的是盯著書“看”——還有用手抓、丟、扔、抱、咬，和其他所有一切一個(gè)幼小生命喜歡做的事情。然而，在過去的半年里，他不再僅僅是盯著書看，還開始認(rèn)得一些字母和數(shù)字。他看到房間門上的一幅圖，就把圖里大寫的“Y”認(rèn)作“yak（牦牛）”；把大寫的“H”認(rèn)作“hedgehog（刺猬）”；大寫的“K”則是“kangaroo（袋鼠）”；諸如此類。

從進(jìn)化的角度講，閱讀與說話不同，是一種歷史相對(duì)較短的活動(dòng)。成千上萬(wàn)年以來，人類一直以某種形式說話；我們具有與生俱來銘刻在神經(jīng)元中的說話能力。而最早的寫作（距今僅有六千年）和閱讀的每一個(gè)行為，仍然是我兒子學(xué)習(xí)的模板：識(shí)別字母和單詞構(gòu)成的這特殊實(shí)體種類，使用的神經(jīng)環(huán)路幾乎和我們識(shí)別樹木、汽車、動(dòng)物和電話亭是一樣的。

我們的大腦像處理實(shí)物一樣處理單詞和字母，但這并不局限于單詞和字母。文本本身對(duì)于我們的大腦而言，也是一種物理景觀。因此，相較于屏幕上的文字，我們對(duì)于印刷在紙張上的文字的反應(yīng)有所不同，這并不令人意外；理解這些差異的關(guān)鍵在于文字在世界上的結(jié)構(gòu)特征。

在語(yǔ)言學(xué)教授內(nèi)奧米·巴倫的新書《屏幕上的文字：數(shù)字世界里閱讀的命運(yùn)》中，她針對(duì)來自美國(guó)、日本、斯洛伐克和德國(guó)的300多名大學(xué)生，開展了閱讀偏好的調(diào)查?！?br>