You Probably Aren’t Going to Read This

How to Rescue Our Writing Minds from the Infinite Scroll

We are submerged in words. Articles and emails, texts and alerts, newsfeeds that refresh endlessly, comment threads without end, podcasts translated into print for those too restless to listen. The written word is everywhere, demanding our attention. And yet, somehow, we are reading less.

Ask someone when they last read, truly read, without glancing at a notification or toggling to a new tab, and you’ll likely get a pause. Ask when they last reread something, and you may get nothing at all. The silence speaks. It’s not just the habit of rereading that’s vanishing; it’s the deeper, slower discipline of reading itself that seems to be eroding. The consequences extend beyond comprehension, they ripple into how we write, too. But the shifts are not always loud or obvious. They unfold quietly, almost imperceptibly, in scholarly work especially: in the flattening of argument, the erosion of nuance, the gradual disappearance of deep thinking that invites reflection rather than reaction.

The Second Pass

Rereading is not indulgent. It’s not optional. It’s an essential part of thinking with care and precision. It’s the real work of comprehension. To return to a text is to acknowledge that the first reading was only a beginning, that meaning does not reveal itself all at once. It emerges gradually, in layers, line by line, like an image coming into focus in the quiet hush of a darkroom. Rereading is the labor of understanding.

The writer Vladimir Nabokov once said: “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.” This wasn’t irony, nor a provocation. It was the recognition that while the first read acquaints us with the plot, only through returning for the second or third time that we perceive the deeper currents: the style, the structure, the quiet logic of a sentence placed just so. The surface gives way, and something more enduring comes into view.

The importance of rereading is not confined to literature. It holds just as true in political science, in sociology, in economics, and in the broader terrain of the social sciences. The texts we annotate, the arguments we critique, the methods we design, they all demand more than a single pass. Insight in these fields often resides not on the surface, but in the interplay of claims, the framing of evidence, the assumptions that sit quietly between the lines. And yet, in academic life as elsewhere, we so rarely return. The pace is too fast, the incentives too forward-facing. Rereading feels like a luxury, when in truth, it is a necessity.

The Fragmented Reader

What happened? In part, the blame is ours. We rush to stay current, compelled by the next book, the next article, the next post, the next iteration of an idea barely understood. I’ve done this too. The rhythms of academia, and of public discourse, reward velocity over depth, output over insight. But the change runs deeper than habit or incentive. It marks a broader shift, one that touches not only how we read, but how we think. When we no longer linger with texts, we risk losing the capacity for sustained attention, for complexity, for the kind of thought that unfolds slowly, over time.

In his recent book The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt details the cognitive cost of growing up with smartphones. Young people, he writes, are not merely distracted, they are neurologically rewired by the attention economy. The phone becomes a prosthesis, a pacifier, a constant interrupter of thought. It fosters anxiety, erodes focus, and renders deep engagement nearly impossible.

Yes, there is ongoing debate among social scientists over the causal chain in Jonathan Haidt’s argument, but let’s be honest: we’ve all felt the pull. The smartphone doesn’t just distract, it reorganizes our attention. We are all conscripts in a new regime, where scrolling displaces reflection, and the very notion of returning to the same page twice can seem almost comically inefficient. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, we are training ourselves out of the habit of rereading. And in doing so, we may be training ourselves out of the habits of thought that rereading makes possible.

What Rereading Restores

The loss isn’t abstract. When we stop rereading, we begin to lose something essential: the ability to follow the architecture of an argument, to sense its rhythm, its tension, its subtleties. We miss the subtle choices: the words not used, the ambiguity left intact. We forget what came before and fail to connect it to what comes next. What’s lost isn’t just comprehension, but the possibility of transformation, the slow, recursive work by which a text reshapes our understanding, not all at once, but over time.

I recently returned to some canonical works, one of the perks of my sabbatical. I reread Seymour Lipset’s Political Man, Ronald Inglehart’s Silent Revolution, and Max Weber’s Economy and Society, texts I thought I knew. But this time, something surfaced that hadn’t before. Of course, it was always there. I just wasn’t ready to see it. Rereading isn’t only about encountering a sentence differently, it’s about encountering yourself differently. I’ve come to realize that, sometimes, you have to grow into a line. You revisit it weeks, months or even years later and recognize that the gap wasn’t in the text, but in your perspective. We change, and the text changes with us. That’s the quiet power of returning: the page remains the same, but we don’t. Rereading isn’t just an act of interpretation, it’s an act of becoming.

Rereading Builds Skill Power

In earlier pieces, I’ve explored the invisible architecture of good writing, a concept I’ve come to call skill power: the quiet, deliberate ability to move forward on the page, not because inspiration strikes, but because we’ve learned to write through the noise, monotony, and the blank page. But if writing is where this power originates, rereading is where it deepens. It is in rereading that the mind begins to recognize flow, where the ear attunes itself to terminology, where the writer starts to see the underlying structure behind the argument. It’s the moment when the act of writing evolves from mechanical effort into an art of clarity and insight.

It’s also in the act of returning to our own sentences that the deeper mechanisms of good writing start to reveal themselves. We begin to hear the rhythm, not just the words. We feel when a clause is too heavy, or when a line lands just right. Rereading trains our mind to see what most readers only feel: a kind of X-ray vision for structure, tone, and syntax. The more we engage in it, the more the hidden framework of strong writing becomes apparent. And once we can see it, we can begin to construct it.

Without rereading, much of this remains elusive. Just as no one masters the piano after hearing a sonata only once, no one becomes a great writer by passing over well-crafted sentences just once. The art of writing is rooted in repetition. If we aim to write clearly, we must learn to reread with intention.

A Small Act of Deviance

This is not a plea for purism or perfection. We all skim. We all scroll. But perhaps what’s needed now is a conscious revival of rereading, not merely as a study technique or academic routine, but as an ongoing practice. Print the article. Return to the chapter. Write in the margins. Pause. Go back. Model this for students. Suggest not ten books, but one book worth reading twice.

Rereading is not merely about memory, it is about who we are. It paves a way of resisting the relentless churn of the attention economy. It is how we safeguard the delicate frameworks of deep thinking and deep work while ensuring they endure. In a world obsessed with speed, rereading becomes a quiet form of resistance. It allows us to reclaim time for deep reflection, to move against the current rather than with it. Through rereading, we affirm that some things are worth returning to, not just once, but again and again.

A Short Guide to Rereading

If you’re a student, researcher, or writer striving to protect your work from the ceaseless demands of the infinite scroll, here’s a brief guide that has helped shape my own rereading practice, and may prove useful for yours as well:

1. Keep a “reread pile.” Whether physical or digital, set aside texts you plan to revisit. This simple act of separation is the first step toward meaningful return.

2. Write down what matters. When something resonates, write it down. Writing on paper (as I highlighted here) shifts your relationship with the text, making comprehension more likely.

3. Reread selectively, not systematically. Not every text warrants a second look. But if something lingers, puzzles you, or shifts your perspective, go back.

4. Turn rereading into a practice. The second (or third) reading isn’t about speed, it’s about comprehension. Deep attention cannot coexist with constant notifications, so set aside distractions, put the phone down and close your email.

We do not need more information, we need more recollection. In rereading, we sharpen our minds, refine our voices, and deepen our writing. The page remains the same, but we do not.

Engage and Subscribe

If these ideas resonated with you, or sparked insights of your own, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to reply, comment, or share your own strategies for writing and deep thinking. And if you haven’t yet, consider subscribing to stay informed on future posts exploring research, writing, and the practices behind deep work. Your feedback is deeply appreciated. Thank you.