Just slow down and read!
What better way to be part of the slow movement than to have a good read. The Slow Books movement is about getting back into the love of reading good books. Few people these days spend time each day reading for sheer enjoyment.
When we have time for leisure we tend to fill that time with physical activity or with passive TV viewing. We often have difficulty justifying sitting down and reading a good book, even to ourselves. The pace of our lives and the expectations we place on ourselves result in a life filled with ‘have to’ activities, and very few quiet enjoyment-only activities.
There are many benefits of reading regularly; reduction in stress levels, increased creativity, inspiration and motivation, entertainment and a good laugh, and broader perspectives and more open mind.
So are we getting stupider? Is that what this is about? Sort of. According to The Shallows, a new book by technology sage Nicholas Carr, our hyperactive online habits are damaging the mental faculties we need to process and understand lengthy textual information. Round-the-clock news feeds leave us hyperlinking from one article to the next – without necessarily engaging fully with any of the content; our reading is frequently interrupted by the ping of the latest email; and we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts.
Source: The Art Of Slow Reading
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- Slow Reading: An Antidote for Fast World? (newsweek.com)
