本篇文章共分 9 個段落，從日常生活中觀察到的現象開始分析閱讀能力隨著閱讀媒介變化所帶來的不良影響，並輔以不同學者所做的研究與分析，最後提出應該如何力挽狂瀾以免永遠失去深度閱讀的能力。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

Changes in Reading Habits 閱讀習慣的改變

1. 閱讀大腦迴路生變

   What are the implications of the way we read today?

   Look around on your next plane trip. The iPad is the new pacifier for babies and toddlers. Younger school-aged children read stories on smartphones; older kids don’t read at all, but hunch over video games. Parents and other passengers read on tablets or skim a flotilla of email and news feeds. Unbeknown to most of us, an invisible, game-changing transformation links everyone in this picture: the neuronal circuit that underlies the brain’s ability to read is subtly, rapidly changing and this has implications for everyone from the pre-reading toddler to the expert adult.

   我們今天的閱讀方式有什麼影響？

   在你的下一次飛行旅程中，看看周圍。iPad 是嬰兒和學步兒童的新安撫奶嘴。年齡較小的學齡兒童在智慧型手機上閱讀故事；年齡較大的孩子根本不閱讀，而是弓著身子在玩電動遊戲。父母和其他乘客在平板電腦上閱讀，或流覽一排排的電子郵件和新聞提要。我們大多數人都不知道，一個無形的、改變遊戲規則的轉變將這幅圖中的每個人聯繫在一起：支撐大腦閱讀能力的神經元迴路正在發生微妙的、快速的變化，這對從閱讀前的幼兒到專業的成年人都有影響。

2. 深度閱讀發展受阻

   As work in neurosciences indicates, the acquisition of literacy necessitated a new circuit in our species’ brain more than 6,000 years ago. That circuit evolved from a very simple mechanism for decoding basic information, like the number of goats in one’s herd, to the present, highly elaborated reading brain. My research depicts how the present reading brain enables the development of some of our most important intellectual and affective processes: internalized knowledge, analogical reasoning, and inference; perspective-taking and empathy; critical analysis and the generation of insight. Research surfacing in many parts of the world now cautions that each of these essential ‘deep reading’ processes may be under threat as we move into digital-based modes of reading.

   正如神經科學方面的研究所顯示的那樣，6,000 多年前，識字能力的獲得使得我們這個物種的大腦需要一個新的迴路。這個迴路從一個非常簡單的基本資訊解碼機制，如一個人的羊群中的山羊數量，進化到現在高度精細的閱讀大腦。我的研究描述了目前的閱讀大腦如何使我們一些最重要的智力和情感過程得到發展：內化知識、類比推理和推論；觀點採擇和移情；批判性分析和洞察力的產生。現在世界上許多地方出現的研究表明，隨著我們進入基於數位的閱讀模式，這些基本的「深度閱讀」過程都可能受到威脅。

3. 影響範圍

   This is not a simple, binary issue of print versus digital reading and technological innovations. As MIT scholar Sherry Turkle has written, we do not err as a society when we innovate but when we ignore what we disrupt or diminish while innovating. In this hinge moment between print and digital cultures, society needs to confront what is diminishing in the expert reading circuit, what our children and older students are not developing, and what we can do about it.

   這不是一個簡單的、二元的印刷品與數位閱讀和技術革新的問題。正如麻省理工學院學者 Sherry Turkle 所寫的那樣，作為一個社會，我們在創新時並沒有犯錯，而是在創新時忽略了我們破壞或削弱的東西。在這個印刷文化和數字文化的關鍵時刻，社會需要面對專家閱讀迴路中正在減少的東西，我們的孩子和高年級學生沒有發展的東西，以及我們可以做些什麼。

4. 閱讀迴路的影響因素

   We know from research that the reading circuit is not given to human beings through a genetic blueprint like vision or language; it needs an environment to develop. Further, it will adapt to that environment’s requirements – from different writing systems to the characteristics of whatever medium is used. If the dominant medium advantages processes that are fast, multi-task oriented and well-suited for large volumes of information, like the current digital medium, so will the reading circuit. As UCLA psychologist Patricia Greenfield writes, the result is that less attention and time will be allocated to slower, time-demanding deep reading processes.

   我們從研究中得知，閱讀迴路並不像視覺或語言那樣通過遺傳藍圖賦予人類；它需要一個環境來發展。此外，它還會適應環境的要求—從不同的書寫系統到所使用的任何媒介的特點。如果主導媒介的優勢是快速、多工取向和適合大量資訊的過程，如目前的數位媒介，閱讀迴路也會如此。正如加州大學洛杉磯分校心理學家 Patricia Greenfield 所寫的那樣，其結果是，較少的專注力和時間將被分配給較慢的、有時間要求的深度閱讀過程。

5. 學生現況

   Increasing reports from educators and from researchers in psychology and the humanities bear this out. English literature scholar and teacher Mark Edmundson describes how many college students actively avoid the classic literature of the 19th and 20th centuries in favour of something simpler as they no longer have the patience to read longer, denser, more difficult texts. We should be less concerned with students’ ‘cognitive impatience’, however, than by what may underlie it: the potential inability of large numbers of students to read with a level of critical analysis sufficient to comprehend the complexity of thought and argument found in more demanding texts.

   越來越多來自教育工作者以及心理學和人文學科的研究人員的報告證明了這一點。英國文學學者和教師 Mark Edmundson 描述說，許多大學生主動回避 19 世紀和 20 世紀的經典文學作品，而選擇更簡單的東西，因為他們不再有耐心閱讀更長、更密集、更難的文章。然而，我們不應關注學生的「認知不耐」，而應關注其背後的原因：大量的學生可能無法以足夠的批判性分析水準來閱讀，以理解難度更高文本中的複雜思想和論證。

6. 實驗證明

   Multiple studies show that digital screen use may be causing a variety of troubling downstream effects on reading comprehension in older high school and college students. In Stavanger, Norway, psychologist Anne Mangen and colleagues studied how high school students comprehend the same material in different mediums. Mangen’s group asked subjects questions about a short story whose plot had universal student appeal; half of the students read the story on a tablet, the other half in paperback. Results indicated that students who read on print were superior in their comprehension to screen-reading peers, particularly in their ability to sequence detail and reconstruct the plot in chronological order.

   多項研究顯示，數位螢幕的使用可能對高中高年級和大學學生的閱讀理解造成了各種令人不安的遞延影響。在挪威斯塔萬格，心理學家 Anne Mangen 及其同事研究了高中生如何在不同媒介中理解相同的材料。曼根的研究小組向受試者提出了關於一個短篇故事的問題，這個故事的情節對學生具有普遍的吸引力；一半的學生在平板電腦上閱讀這個故事，另一半則在平裝書上閱讀。結果指出，在印刷品上閱讀的學生在理解能力上優於螢幕閱讀的同學，特別是在排列細節和按時間順序重建情節的能力上。

7. 現行閱讀常態

   Ziming Liu from San Jose State University has conducted a series of studies which indicate that the ‘new norm’ in reading is skimming, involving word-spotting and browsing through the text. Many readers now use a pattern when reading in which they sample the first line and then word-spot through the rest of the text. When the reading brain skims like this, it reduces time allocated to deep reading processes. In other words, we don’t have time to grasp complexity, to understand another’s feelings, to perceive beauty, and to create thoughts of the reader’s own.

   聖荷西州立大學的 Ziming Liu 進行了一系列的研究，顯示閱讀的「新標準」是略讀，包括單詞點讀和流覽文本。現在許多讀者在閱讀時使用一種模式，即他們在第一行採樣，然後通過文字的其餘部分進行點字。當閱讀大腦像這樣略讀時，它減少了分配給深度閱讀過程的時間。換句話說，我們沒有時間去把握複雜性，理解他人的感受，感知美，以及創造讀者自己的思想。

8. 思辨能力下降的後果

   The possibility that critical analysis, empathy and other deep reading processes could become the unintended ‘collateral damage’ of our digital culture is not a straightforward binary issue about print versus digital reading. It is about how we all have begun to read on various mediums and how that changes not only what we read, but also the purposes for which we read. Nor is it only about the young. The subtle atrophy of critical analysis and empathy affects us all equally. It affects our ability to navigate a constant bombardment of information. It incentivizes a retreat to the most familiar stores of unchecked information, which require and receive no analysis, leaving us susceptible to false information and irrational ideas.

   批判性分析、移情和其他深度閱讀過程可能成為我們數位文化意料之外的「附帶損害」，這不是一個關於印刷品與數字閱讀的直接二元問題。它是關於我們如何開始通過各種媒介進行閱讀，以及這不僅改變了我們的閱讀內容，而且也改變了我們的閱讀目的。這也不只是關於年輕人。批判性分析和移情的微妙萎縮同樣影響著我們所有人。它影響到我們駕馭不斷轟炸的資訊的能力。它促使我們退回到最熟悉的未經檢查的資訊庫中，這些資訊不需要也沒有得到分析，使我們容易受到虛假資訊和非理性想法的影響。

9. 如何修正恢復

   There’s an old rule in neuroscience that does not alter with age: use it or lose it. It is a very hopeful principle when applied to critical thought in the reading brain because it implies choice. The story of the changing reading brain is hardly finished. We possess both the science and the technology to identify and redress the changes in how we read before they become entrenched. If we work to understand exactly what we will lose, alongside the extraordinary new capacities that the digital world has brought us, there is as much reason for excitement as caution.

   在神經科學中，有一條不隨歲月而改變的古老規則：要麼使用它，要麼失去它。當適用於閱讀大腦的批判性思維時，這是一個充滿希望的原則，因為它意味著選擇。變化中的閱讀大腦的故事還沒有結束。我們擁有科學和技術，可以在閱讀方式的變化變得根深蒂固之前識別和糾正這種變化。如果我們努力瞭解我們將失去什麼，以及數位世界給我們帶來的非凡新能力，我們就有審慎但感興奮的理由。