Deepening the ‘Shallows’: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, Revisited

As the international turn towards the Digital Humanities gains ground, this article revisits the debate about how digital reading affects cognitive styles of immersion in the act of consuming literature. We ask the question whether the much-reviled state of “hyperattention” associated with screen-based reading invariably results in neurocognitive shallowing and cultural loss. Rather than sing along with this well-rehearsed and somewhat predictable chorus, we suggest that digital reading can, under controlled circumstances, enhance one's engagement with literature in a way unimagined and – and literally – unrealised before.