Why You Don't Remember What You Read

Have you ever been reading a book and it's interesting? You know, you feel like you're following along just fine, but then you finish a chapter and you close the book and maybe the next day it just kind of feels like you've forgotten what happens or even who some of the characters are.

Of course, some people have really excellent recall, so they may not have any difficulty here, but I get comments about this from my viewers all the time. So I think that most people experience this at least sometimes or at least to some degree. So I want to talk about that. You know, why is it sometimes easy for us to create memories about the thoughts and ideas that we have about reading, but other times it isn't so easy.

Now, especially lately, it seems there's no shortage of articles or YouTube videos talking about how our phones and computer screens have divided our attention. And it's true. We live in a very distracted world, and the lack of attention and focus makes it difficult for us to remember anything really, much less reading. But while all of that is true, I think the problem is a little bit more nuanced than that. Because this forgetting sometimes, it happens even when we are sitting down and genuinely trying to focus.

Now, if you think about it, we don't really use the same kind of reading all the time. We switch between different modes depending on the type of material. For example, a lot of reading that we do throughout the day is online, and we're reading things like text messages, comments, maybe emails. Uh, the text is usually short, and you usually don't have to think about it very much. It's very easy to interpret. Researchers refer to this mode of reading as hyper reading. And the goal here is primarily about speed and efficiency rather than full comprehensive understanding. We're skimming the text. We're searching for keywords, jumping between sections, or sometimes even jumping between screens, and we're just trying to get as much relevant information as we can, and it works fine for certain situations.

But if you think about it, it's a completely different mode of reading that you might use for, say, a novel. Novels require a more immersive mode of reading because the ideas tend to have more of a long-term connection to each other. And so your mind has to work harder to follow and keep track of linear and sort of relational details. And another mode of reading is analytical. This is what you'd use if you were going to read a book on physics or philosophy. Now, that kind of reading is going to require you to really slow down. You're probably going to have to go back and do a lot of rereading, and you're going to have to be able to sort of process a lot of abstract ideas.

Now, these two modes of reading, immersive and analytical, these actually belong to a broader category known as deep reading. Now, Maryanne Wolf is a cognitive neuroscientist known for her work on reading and literacy, and she has been an early voice warning about the effects that digital environments have had on our reading habits and our capacity for deep reading. She describes deep reading as the array of sophisticated processes that propel comprehension and that include inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, reflection, and insight. It's a bit of a mouthful, but basically, it just means that deep reading is the way your mind and your emotions work together to help you interpret the words on the page. And it happens when you slow down, when you take the time to really think about the ideas that are being presented, and then critically evaluate them and connect them to your own experiences and understanding of the world.

And this is why deep reading is better for memory because memory depends on whether you're actually wrestling with the ideas, whether you're analyzing them and processing them and so forth. But when the material is easy and you can move through it very quickly, then your mind isn't really doing much. And you might think, well, as long as I understood it, then I should be able to remember it. But that's not always the case because comprehension and memory are not the same thing. In fact, in some cases, when a passage is too easy, the mental work can be very shallow.

Now, for most of us, much of the reading that we do throughout the day is done in a hyper reading mode. And this has become the default mode that we read in. So that when we sit down with a book, it's very hard to just flip a switch and slow down and really think about what we're actually reading. And again, sometimes this happens, you know, even when we've put our phone away and we're really trying to focus.

And there are lots of things you can do. You know, the internet is filled with all kinds of recommendations for how to deal with this. We're advised to read with purpose, to read away from our phones, to read habitually, to read at our own pace, to read at a slower pace, to read with a journal, take notes, summarize. I've recommended most of these things at one point or another, and they all have the potential to help. It's not bad advice, but it's not going to really mean anything unless you intentionally cultivate an environment that fosters concentration and active comprehension.

Something that I have done, you know, instead of, you know, trying to form new habits or try to follow some silly reading routine. I've recently decided to just return to some old habits and try reading the way that I used to. Personally, I love reading at the library. I worked in a library all through my undergraduate and graduate years. And my first real job out of university was in a library. In fact, this channel is named after the place that I used to go in my old library when I wanted to be alone and just get lost in a book.

Now, if a library is a little out of the way for you, or if it's just not your thing, maybe you could just set up an old-fashioned reading nook, you know, far away from the TV, far away from your phone and computers or any technology whatsoever. And something else I would suggest is that you think about the time that you spend for each reading session. Nowadays, reading consists of short incremental fragments of reading time. But it's really difficult to achieve a deep state of flow when you're constantly having to stop and then restart again.

If you think about it, you know, if every day you're immersing yourself in a book for, say, an hour, a daily habit like this can train your mind to naturally and automatically return to that slower, more mindful rhythm that's needed for deep reading. Either way, when you sit down to read a book, if you notice that you're having difficulty remembering, it's something to think about. You know, are you reading the same way you do online? Just being aware of this can help you shift into a mode of reading that will make it easier to understand and remember long after you put the book down.