“For me, when I read deep, I am immediately reconnected with a shared knowingness – in a group soul kind of way. To see that what you’ve been feeling has had words put to it triggers a sense of congruence. Also, to see that an artist has turned your perplexing pain into a thing of beauty . . . well, that can see me air-punch in celebration. I also love that deep reading improves us at a biological level.

Neuroscience shows that when we learned to read 6,000 years ago, particular circuits were formed. These circuits sparked vital processes, such as internalized knowledge (which I take to mean “knowingness”), fair reasoning, the ability to be empathetic and to have insight.

As one of the researchers noted, our inability to deep read is seeing us fail to “grasp complexity, to understand another’s feelings, to perceive beauty, and to create thoughts of [our] own.” Studies show young people now struggle to be able to read university texts, as well as life-affecting contracts and information relating to their political responsibilities (um, Brexit!). In essence, skimming has made us sleepy, with all the now-familiar repercussions. As one researcher put it, “It incentivizes a retreat to the most familiar silos of unchecked information, which require and receive no analysis, leaving us susceptible to false information and demagoguery.”

Reading deep articles and nonfiction, as well as good literature, cultivates focus and reprograms our neurons. The stillness and time required for a long read (anything over 3,000 words) also allows our minds to formulate our moral position. This is like building a muscle.”