In recent years, Maugham's famous phrase "reading is a refuge to carry with you" has become a familiar phrase. When we talk about reading, the first benefit that comes to mind is that it can take us into a shelter.
However, is reading really just a "negative" pastime? Not really. Reading not only allows us to escape the world, but it also makes us understand the world better.
All kinds of discussions about reading are still ongoing. In today's rapidly changing technology, what impact will the change in reading style have on human beings? Is paper books still the best vehicle for reading?
On this year's World Book Day, OPPO jointly looked at ideals and invited Dou Wentao, Shi Hang, and Zhang Yueran (in alphabetical order) to talk about emerging reading scenes, personal reading experiences and thoughts.
In the round table conversation between the three of them, you will find that they and we share similar reading confusion. For example, Dou Wentao said that he was too slow to read, as if the books at home could not be read in his lifetime.
How to solve it? Maybe it's a fake question. Reading books can be a little willful. Whether you have a book in your hand or a cell phone, start reading it and you're done!
Reading, you can be a little willful
Dou Wentao x Shi Hang x Zhang Yueran
1.
Reading is a rewarding experience.
Dou Wentao: Today is World Book Day, I will first come up with a question, Yue Ran and Shi Hang are both writers, what does it mean for you to open the book?
Zhang Yueran: My father had a big bookcase, and when I was a child, I would keep flipping through books there. The farthest and tallest from me is "The Complete Works of Lu Xun", there are ten volumes, I think it is boring, so I have read all the "Gone with the Wind" and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" at the bottom.
One day, there was really no book to read, so I took down a volume of "The Complete Works of Lu Xun" from the top, and suddenly dropped a thing, and at first glance, it was the passbook of our family.
Dou Wentao: Sandwiched in the Complete Works of Lu Xun?
Zhang Yueran: Right. Because my father studied Lu Xun, it was very reasonable for him to put the passbook in the Complete Works of Lu Xun. On the other hand, he also felt that I would definitely not want to read the Complete Works of Lu Xun, so it was safest to put it there.
Shi Hang: I don't think he is defending against you, he first thinks that the thief does not like to see Lu Xun, so the thief will not pass. Another is that he may feel that the money in this life is earned from Lu Xun, so the passbook must be put there.
Zhang Yueran: Right. At that time, I saw that I still had some money, so I put it back with confidence, but I knew that after the passbook was placed in the "Complete Works of Lu Xun", I did not dare to take it down and read it, which was a delay in my reading of Lu Xun.
Dou Wentao: It turned out that in Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman", I read the word "eat people" all over the book, and Yue Ran here is reading all the passbooks.
Zhang Yueran: This is really called "the golden house in the book", and it is really beneficial to open the book.
Dou Wentao: The female writer is the golden house in the book, is the male writer in the book himself... (Yan Ruyu)?
Shi Hang: I am a male reader and not a writer. However, if you open the volume, you can at least look at the author's photo. Reading a book may be a long time, but looking at photos can be very fast, and the next time you chat with someone, you will have a topic. Opening a book doesn't have to be read for a long time, and reading a little has a little benefit.
Dou Wentao: So what does it mean for you that unwinding is beneficial?
Shi Hang: It means that when dealing with people, there are topics and social currencies.
Dou Wentao: Do you know what it means to me? It is a buy and sell that is now profitable. Today is reading day, OPPO supports the establishment of a reading program, last night sent me an OPPO Find N mobile phone, I opened, folding screen, really open the book is beneficial.
Shi Hang: I think the design of the folding screen is particularly reasonable, because it is more like a book. Usually, don't we always complain that the electronic version is not easy to read.
2.
Fragmented reading vs. Immersive reading
Dou Wentao: OPPO has brought us a topic that is worth talking about. I would like to ask you, what is the proportion of time spent reading on paper and e-reading now? I'm almost half and half.
Zhang Yueran: Me too.
Shi Hang: If you add Weibo, it will definitely be half and half, and I still read online articles.
Dou Wentao: Do you believe that one day, when the simulation technology becomes more and more powerful, for example, in a hundred years, paper books will become a kind of collectible thing?
Shi Hang: There must be a possibility, but it's a pity that I can't see that moment in time, because our life span is limited.
Have you ever witnessed the moment when bamboo jane was replaced by paper? No, it took a long time to complete this replacement. I think the future must be a state of dual-track system and multi-track system, and at the moment of handover, we may not all be able to see it.
Dou Wentao: I think the impact of digital reading and paper reading on people's way of thinking will be a bigger problem.
Some time ago, I saw what seemed to be a yale university study, saying that they studied thousands of people over the age of 50 for 12 years, excluding educational, racial, physical and other factors, and came to the conclusion that people with fragmented reading habits will affect their lifespan, and those who can read thick books will live longer.
I've heard a saying that "qi is consistent" is good for the body. Now science has also proved that meditation is good for the human body, because when a person is in a meditative state, it is conducive to gene replication. Then think about reading a book, but also focus on one thing for a long time, which is also a kind of concentration, into a quiet. Do you think this is good for the body?
Zhang Yueran: It is good. I think reading that kind of particularly long novel, like Ferrante's Naples quadrilogy, after reading it is like following two girls for a lifetime, feeling like you have lived several times, lived a long life, and then returned to a starting point, so sometimes it feels very vicissitudes.
Shi Hang: Three lives and three lives.
Zhang Yueran: You feel reborn, and your feelings about death are different.
Shi Hang: I've been talking to people a lot lately about how many books I read in a year. I have a little more than others, because others read one book in one go and then read the next, and I basically read six or seven books at the same time.
I think "immersion" seems like a tall word, but jumping is very interesting. For example, Stez Turkel's "American Dream Hunt", a thick book that tells the lives of hundreds of Americans. You look at another person's life two pages apart, is this looking at more three lives and three lives?
So I also like to read Weibo, in Which you can see sentient beings, and in paper books or long readings, you can only see heaven and earth. That's how sentient beings are broken.
Dou Wentao: There are two opposing views now, one is that modern people lack endurance and it is good to do one thing for a long time. For example, if you abandon the various conditions, can you maintain one thing for three hours in a row? This is good. But the other reality is Shi Hang's, where eight horses run in their heads.
Zhang Yueran: Contrary to the two of us.
Dou Wentao: I am a combination of the two of you.
Shi Hang: Wen Tao almost showed his filling.
Dou Wentao: Yes, I do read several books at the same time most of the time, see here today, and read it tomorrow. Every time I put one book here, and another book put there, picking up what was there. I feel like life.
It's a bit sour to say, an "autistic" person he doesn't go out, but he will be exposed to many people, many scenes.
Today's certain mood is suitable for reading a person's biography, the last time I did not read it, I grabbed it and looked at it; today's mood seems to be suitable for watching some chicken soup, and then I grabbed it and looked at it like this. So reading a book becomes a matter of fate, with the fate of your mood or the need of the time.
Although this process disrupts the order set for you by the original author, we move horizontally through the book, forming a reader-dominated reading vein. Just like when we have a meal, you rarely say that you have eaten all the dishes on one plate and then eat the next one. In the end you form a knowledge structure of your own. In the professor's opinion, is this probably not good? Because it is not systematic enough.
Zhang Yueran: You are still dominating reading and wanting to control.
Shi Hang: He didn't, he just thought of himself as a bowling ball, being grunted over, hitting something.
Dou Wentao: Yueran said that I was quite beautiful, but in fact, the reason why I fell into such a situation was because there were too many temptations and too many books.
I have a agony now, because I always buy books, and the books are piled up, but to be honest, I must have read fewer books than you, because I read very slowly. Eight horses also ran out of frustration, because I could never finish reading all the books, but I always had to read them. Do you read books quickly?
Zhang Yueran: I don't dare to put the book down, because some of them may not be finished. I think a lot of good books are a burden, and reading the middle to the middle and back is like crossing a mountain. For example, when I watch Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain", there is a period of time in the middle of which it is very bitter, but after turning it over, there will be a feeling of sudden enlightenment, and I still enjoy the bitter process.
Shi Hang: I think it's like WeChat has added a lot of people, but some people can just try to stop talking for two sentences. The same is true of books, scrapping books and walking away is not a failure, not a betrayal, but saving time to meet another person.
But Wen Tao just said that the feeling is a little anxious, like today I came to four groups of people on my birthday, I have to entertain, which one is not well received, the heart is uncomfortable. But the book is not a person, you can dry it as you dry, you can also pick it up casually. Like your books are buckled, it is like a bird flying, and if you close it, it is a brick.
Dou Wentao: This image is good, then your home is a bird's nest.
Shi Hang: I especially love to read a subject, a diary. The diary is good that it can be flipped through at will, and it can start from scratch at any time, which I think is interesting. In fact, we do not call it master reading, but to find more and more reasons for our own laissez-faire.
3.
Reading slowly, am I having a problem?
Dou Wentao: I read slowly, I was a little anxious, but then the anxiety of reading "Zhuangzi" was alleviated.
"Zhuangzi" says that "my life also has an end, and knowledge has no end." I bought so many books, and I couldn't read one-tenth of my anxiety in my life, and it was the sentence "Zhuangzi" that gave me the solution. He said your life is limited, but what you need to know is endless. With no end, there is no end, and it is gone.
That is to say, if you desperately want to take a limited time to chase unlimited knowledge, in fact, you will definitely "die" and die. This relieved me, it didn't matter how much I could read.
Shi Hang: His old people are like this, let alone my generation? I have a saying that I will leave some suspense for the next life, don't know everything in this life.
Dou Wentao: Then the next life must also be able to do it. Why am I reading slowly? Because I always want to practice what the book says. For example, in "Zhuangzi", it is said that the human spirit should fill the heavens and the earth, and when I read this, I stopped, and then thought about whether I could do it or not, and whether Zhuangzi was blind? I want to try.
Zhang Yueran: You still want a sense of complete participation. This feeling is very different from Shi Hang. You want to drill into the book, to cash in on that book. But for Shi Hang, I think he is a wandering soul, he can be free to stay in many places.
Shi Hang: It's that void of light, and you don't know exactly where it is.
Dou Wentao: What kind of state are you in?
Zhang Yueran: It depends on whether it is fiction or non-fiction. Reading novels I need to immerse myself, and I hate being interrupted. But for knowledge books, I am not as rigorous as Wentao, or a feeling of looking from the other side, there is a sense of distance, Wen Tao is to push himself into the atom of knowledge.
Dou Wentao: But if you don't want to figure it out, why watch it?
Zhang Yueran: I think every word I read will be absorbed, and like fat, it will definitely become energy. Why don't you wait for it to react with other accumulated knowledge and intersect?
Dou Wentao: So later I had a friend say to me, he said that you read the book like this, set two hours on a line, and try to see if you can mentally reach the realm of the book, this is cultivation, buddy. When I heard it, I said that cultivation was very good.
Shi Hang: Looking at a word for two hours, isn't that Jin Yong's "White Shou Tai Xuan Jing" in "Chivalrous Travel", seeing a word as a set of sword techniques or boxing techniques, and looking at the movement trajectory in it?
In fact, people do not have to take the initiative to arrange their own time and interests, you are arranged, you will definitely encounter a certain book, a page consumes you for two weeks, will also encounter a kind of book, a few hours to turn over a dozen books.
Dou Wentao: I also want to ask, do you remember all the books you read?
Zhang Yueran: I don't remember much. So now e-books have a note-taking function, which is quite important to me. As a teacher, you sometimes have to force yourself to write down something, otherwise you can't remember who said it, how it was said, or where it came from. It's important to have a footprint. But Shi Hang seemed to remember the source.
Shi Hang: It's difficult for you to see the peacock open screen, but the peacock will say that you can practice more. If you and different people have explained the contents of the same book on different occasions, you will easily remember.
4.
Don't young people read paper books?
Dou Wentao: For people like us, reading is not a problem for us, it's like a kind of food. But I find it interesting that a small group of young people may have been injured by the mandatory reading of books when they were young, and they fell asleep as soon as they read. They also want to change this problem, but I think it is actually that they do not have the habit of getting pleasure from books.
Shi Hang: First of all, these friends should be happy, the quality of sleep is higher than many people. People who read a lot of books are prone to insomnia.
Dou Wentao: I don't think human nature is too different, when we were young because of poverty, a copy of "Water Margin" read 15 times, if you put today's young people in the era when we were young, they will also desperately look for books, because there is no other entertainment.
But there are so many interesting things today, and I have seen some 18- and 19-year-olds who have hardly read printed books. The way they absorb information is all digital, like playing games or social software.
Shi Hang: Sometimes I read books and play at the same time, why can I do it at the same time? Sorry, I,but like you, I also received OPPO's Find N folding phone.
Dou Wentao: Didn't you just send me alone? Now I don't think it's so precious, really.
Shi Hang: I just read books halfway and play games on the other half. I played an ancient war game, and the siege had 5 minutes to get to your turn in the next round, so I watched Crime and Punishment on the other side for those 5 minutes, and when the time came, I went back and clicked the game twice. It's all fun for me.
Dou Wentao: This is the state of the eight horses I just talked about. Are we future human beings going to get used to living in multiple screens, or living in distractions? But it seems that from the perspective of psychological research, this is impossible. In a second, you can switch quickly, but you can't focus on two things at the same time, and the so-called "simultaneous" is just a frequent quick switch.
Shi Hang: Yes, it's switching. My two emotions, two personalities, alternate between playing games and reading books.
Dou Wentao: Sometimes when I think about a lot of thinking about the future of human beings, I think the possibilities are infinite. How steel is made, the human brain will be trained to switch quickly in the future. In fact, the way people think now is different.
The reason why our brains are so smart has a lot to do with words and reading. I watched an Internet survey that day, and it turned out that the first is a short video, the game seems to rank second, and then there is online reading.
SCHA: The game is still a matter of brain judgment, because you have to poke your finger. But short video you only need to press once, it will switch to the next short video after a video is finished, you can stay, whether asleep or awake.
Dou Wentao: So the characteristic of this short and fragmented content is that it is a collection of facts, not logic, or very little logic. There is often no process of deduction, you don't know the ins and outs, you see the results directly. Things may be simplified in short videos, and what would have been a cause for something could become a cause.
I heard a philosophy professor say that many people have a headache when they hear concepts, but that people are as smart as they are today because humans think in terms of concepts and language. So we don't have to really bring a dog over when we're talking about a dog.
It is precisely because of language and concepts that we create a world out of nothingness that can be talked about for five thousand years. So he thinks not to underestimate the symbol of words, we just think with symbols, we can do complex operations like code in our minds.
Shi Hang: That's why the brain can hold so many things.
Dou Wentao: In this sense, if people don't read at all, they need to worry about brain degeneration, because your symbolic thinking is weakened.
Shi Hang: People who don't like to read are equivalent to not having a dictionary or encyclopedia, and you have to run all over the world to finish your own sentence.
Zhang Yueran: This reminds me of the relationship between reading and writing. Originally, when I was teaching, I thought that writing was advanced and reading was the first level, but now in fact, the other way around, the students in the reading class were obviously more senior and more "literary" than the students in the writing class.
Shi Hang: Writing class is equivalent to some kind of excretion today.
Zhang Yueran: Yes, the reason why there are many people in the writing class and the low threshold is because it is practical. This is an interesting phenomenon, that is, people do not want to read, but want to output, reading has become a more profound thing.
Dou Wentao: What can be output?
Zhang Yueran: Output copywriting, copywriting can be turned into short videos, output advertising slogans, advertising slogans can become short videos. Everything that needs to be exported becomes something useful. A lot of writing teaching is actually separate from reading, and many lessons are teaching everyone how to write.
Shi Hang: Because writing can be published directly, it becomes a part of your life, but reading is never a publishable part of a person's life.
Zhang Yueran: Reading is because it is not practical, you can't quantify its role.
Shi Hang: Reading or not reading is a lifetime.
Dou Wentao: Why do you love to read so much?
Shi Hang: We were chosen by God.
Dou Wentao: Look at what I said.
Shi Hang: Others have sharp legs and feet, clear eyebrows, and can survive without reading, so if you can't do anything, all aspects are disabled, you can only rely on reading to enrich yourself.
Dou Wentao: I think what Yue Ran said is more interesting, or because the most common benefit that books can give people is to forget. You don't have to remember it, you don't have to care if it's useful or not.
Zhang Yueran: It will come to you.
Dou Wentao: Let's say that people have connotations here, the so-called connotation is that you yourself don't know what is in your belly, but others think that you have something in your belly, right?
... ...
End
A rambling conversation about reading is over, but the imagination of reading continues.
The concept of OPPO Find N folding screen mobile phone is to open up new possibilities for people's lifestyle and spiritual world with "folding".
Using a folding screen to read, the visible area is larger after the screen is turned on, and we can say goodbye to the trouble of reading books on small screen mobile phones. The split screen function of the folding screen can realize screen reading on one side and note-taking on the other screen, without missing every moment of inspiration. Do-not-disturb mode, you can block incoming calls, WeChat and other interruptions when reading, and feel the real immersive reading.
The way you read is changing, but the kernel of reading doesn't.
I hope that everyone who reads can find a suitable way to read. Fragmentation or immersion, in short, in the matter of reading, wayward, casual, as long as reading can also take you to witness the wider world, why not try?
This article is compiled from the reading day dialogue program "Reading, can be willful" jointly presented by OPPO and See Ideal, slightly deleted, the complete content please move to see the ideal video number or watch the ideal App to watch.
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WeChat content editor: Lin Lan
Producer: Cat Ye