The Future of Learning
“Digitalisation Makes Us Read More”
How does digitalisation influence our cognitive skills? Reading researcher Gerhard Lauer talks about learning in the digital age, creative reading, and why long books are all the rage.
Mr Lauer, as Professor of Book and Reading Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz you have a special research interest in human reading and learning. Research shows that young people – contrary to popular belief – are reading more today than they used to. What’s the reason for that?
More than ever before, young people are having to learn to read in a wide variety of contexts. Furthermore they are more inquisitive than older people. Add to that the selection of media formats on offer today, all of which need to be discovered and mastered. Young people are also reading long books more. In particular popular titles such as Game of Thrones are especially lengthy.
Aren’t we running the risk of losing the ability to read longer texts comprehensively, in our world of memes and 280-character tweets?
No. Modern societies are becoming increasingly complex and therefore require an understanding of increasingly complex processes. Another consequence of this is that we are encountering longer texts. There are studies on this subject – for example the Booker Prize frontrunners have been getting longer over the past 20 years. Creative readers these days can switch instantly between reading a meme and a long format. Of course at an individual level there are big differences. 10 to 15 per cent of young people virtually don’t read at all and are functionally illiterate. But generally speaking the digital age – unlike the age of television – is causing us to read more. The number of people using language for creative purposes has never been as high as today either.
So future generations need to learn how to handle increasingly long and complex texts?
It isn’t just about the length of texts, it’s also about something known as “metacognitive reading strategies”. If we want to learn a new skill, we can evaluate for instance whether to watch a YouTube video or use an alternative medium. This evaluation requires highly complex cognitive processes. That’s one reason why intelligence is on the increase in the industrial nations. Modern societies have a requirement for good readers, who are also able to switch reading modes quickly.
Social reading – in other words interaction with other readers – is also popular with the young generation.
Book clubs have been around for a while, of course, but the extent of social reading today is historically unique. Billions of people now follow individual themes on BookTok. A global audience is emerging, and language is being shared on an unprecedented scale across all the borders. Readers are reflecting on the books in many ways – for example from an aesthetic angle, but frequently also in terms of their own lives. With social reading, this reflection is shared and discussed with others. This forms a framework upon which they can improve their own reading and writing. Generation Z certainly has excellent prospects of becoming the most intelligent readers that have ever existed.
The internet is the school of the world.
So digitalisation has had an extremely positive influence on human language and learning skills?
The internet is the school of the world – and that’s no exaggeration. There is something to be learned in any subject area you could possibly think of. For instance never before have there been so many language learners as now. In the public domain we are more concerned with the idea that people can also learn hatred online. But maybe we should spend more time talking about how many people are learning a new language or dance technique, taking an electrical engineering course – or whatever else there is to study.
Are we also losing out to some extent as a result of digitalisation? For example, hardly anyone can read a map nowadays, since everyone now has satnav on their phone. What implications does that have for our cognitive skills?
Plato was already sceptical that the introduction of writing would cause people to lose the skill of remembering things. It’s true to say that most of us are no longer able to follow tracks as proficiently as a hunter-gatherer thousands of years ago. Although we do forget things with new technology, it doesn’t mean we lose the skill completely. We could reactivate it if we needed to. For example you don’t need to remember phone numbers anymore these days because you have them stored on your phone. But you haven’t lost the basic ability to remember things. So the question is, what do we lose that we would need in order to cope in modern-day society. For instance that might be the skill of reading social signals. But even here there’s a contrary development: the social world has become more of a complex, open environment – which in turn calls for cultivation of these skills.
There’s no such thing as purely self-motivated learning. We always learn because other people bring something to our attention. Learning something that’s worth learning from someone else is a fundamental human mechanism. So the teacher as an entity will not disappear. We might use assistance systems based on artificial intelligence in the classroom to support our learning progress in a more individualised way, for example by giving very precise feedback when correcting errors. Systems that encourage concentration, working on the basis of rewards or gamification, can support learning as well. But the social components will continue to play a role.
You have published a “CV of failures” on your website. What role does failure play in learning?
The opportunity to learn from mistakes is actually what makes us into such smart learners. That’s why we need a learning culture that views mistakes positively. I think it helps people to maintain an enquiring mind. And it’s precisely this ability to cultivate lifelong curiosity that makes people so special.