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New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good
When I was a kid in the 1980s, my parents sent me to a Waldorf school in England. At the time, the school discouraged parents from allowing their kids to watch too much TV, instead telling them to emphasize reading, hands-on learning and outdoor play. I chafed at the stricture then. But perhaps they were on to something: Today I don't watch much TV and I still read a lot. Since my school days, however, a far more insidious and enticing form of tech has taken hold: the internet, especially via smartphones. These days I know I have to put my phone in a drawer or in another room if I need to concentrate for more than a few minutes. Since so-called intelligence tests were invented around a century ago, until recently, international I.Q. scores climbed steadily in a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. But there is evidence that our ability to apply that brain power is decreasing. According to a recent report, adult literacy scores leveled off and began to decline across a majority of O.E.C.D. countries in the past decade, with some of the sharpest declines visible among the poorest. Kids also show declining literacy. Writing in the Financial Times, John Burn-Murdoch links this to the rise of a post-literate culture in which we consume most of our media through smartphones, eschewing dense text in favor of images and short-form video. Other research has associated smartphone use with A.D.H.D. symptoms in adolescents, and a quarter of surveyed American adults now suspect they may have the condition. School and college teachers assign fewer full books to their students, in part because they are unable to complete them. Nearly half of Americans read zero books in 2023. The idea that technology is altering our capacity not just to concentrate but also to read and to reason is catching on. The conversation no one is ready for, though, is how this may be creating yet another form of inequality. Think of this by comparison with patterns of junk food consumption: As ultraprocessed snacks have grown more available and inventively addictive, developed societies have seen a gulf emerge between those with the social and economic resources to sustain a healthy lifestyle and those more vulnerable to the obesogenic food culture. This bifurcation is strongly class-inflected: Across the developed West, obesity has become strongly correlated with poverty. I fear that so, too, will be the tide of post-literacy. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Community group raises money to buy woodland
People in Stroud have successfully raised £66,000 to purchase a local woodland. The community benefit society, Stroud Woodland, are now in the process of purchasing Slade Wood, with the hope of protecting it for future generations. Slade Wood forms part of continuous woodland beginning above Summer Street and extending along the Slad valley to Swifts Hill. Co-director of Stroud Woodland , Ben Spencer describes the wood as "a little pocket of woodland which is really treasured". More news stories for Gloucestershire Listen to the latest news for Gloucestershire The Stroud Woodland Community Benefit Society was set up in 2010, to purchase Folly Wood, just north of Stroud. "What people really enjoy is having the opportunity to spend time in the space on their own or with their family, at Folly Wood," said Mr Spencer. This week, the group announced it had raised the necessary £66,000 to buy Slade Wood, a steep three-acre piece of woodland on the edge of the Slad Valley, on the outskirts of Stroud. "Because it's tucked away, it's a bit of a hidden gem," Mr Spencer said. Members of the public who bought shares to fund the purchase will get no financial return. Mr Spencer insists the benefit is social and environmental. "It's for people taking some time out. People locally have grown up and visited it over the years, as kids and teenagers, as well as parents of young children," he said. Once they have taken ownership of Slade Wood, the group plans to keep it open to the public, as it was under the previous owner. "We thought there was a danger it could be bought privately and fenced off with people no longer able to have access to the space," Mr Spencer said. On the environmental side, the group points to successes at Folly Wood where the creation of clearings and ponds has increased biodiversity. Follow BBC Gloucestershire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. More on this story Campaign launched to buy waterfall beauty spot We bought woodland where we walk our dogs for £900k Woodland at Unesco site for sale after 300 years
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Would You Swim in the Seine? Our Paris Reporter Took the Plunge.
The Seine is open for public swimming after a century-long ban. WSJ's Noemie Bisserbe takes a dip.
