“There are things in our lives, whether they be novels, short stories, mortgage documents, that actually need our slow reading.… But all the researchers I talk to say you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.” Slow reading, cracking open a book, stopping and thinking about a sentence, maybe going back and reading it again. Giving each word a chance to wow or impress or educate you. Is it possible to be a deep and thoughtful reader—and an efficient online skimmer? Can’t we do both? This feeling that there’s a battle going on between those two skills in our brains comes as no surprise to
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