British Science Week 2022 - what reading online does to your brain.

This week is British Science Week so we thought we’d take a look at the impact of digital on science.

The first point that catches my eye is that British Science Week is in fact 10 days, which started on Friday and runs until this coming Sunday.

Keep in touch with all that’s going on on Twitter @scienceweekUK and the official website at britishscienceweek.org

Your local schools, libraries, charities and businesses will have special events and activities for everyone to take part in - one of the most interesting discussions that caught my eye was some Open University research exploring what reading on screens does to our brains.

One of the key points is just how unnatural reading is - humans have only been able to read for about 6 thousand years and reading on screen has only become dominant in the last 20 years.

Scientists say the sheer volume of reading we do online is a major problem, because it encourages skimming rather than reading and that can change the circuitry in our brain to the point where we may lose the ability to understand more complex content and perhaps even the ability imagine.