Digital technology is transforming the way we read and write. Is it changing our minds too – and if so, for better or worse?
WE READ more than ever – three times as much as we did in 1980, according to one study. But we're reading differently. Take a look around a train carriage full of commuters nowadays and you'll probably see more people perusing text on phones and tablets than in newspapers and books.
We're writing differently, too. Not so long ago people at meetings and lectures scribbled away furiously with their pens as they took notes. Today, talks and presentations are accompanied by the manic click-clack of laptop keyboards.
Hurrah, some say. Our smartphones and tablets are expanding our worlds. We now have access to vast libraries literally at our fingertips. Good riddance to shoulder-wrenching textbooks, teetering towers of dusty papers, leaky ...
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