Reading long, literary sentences sans links and distractions is actually a serious skill that you lose if you don't use it. Before the Internet, the brain read in a
linear fashion, taking advantage of sensory details to remember where key information was in the book by layout.
As we increasingly read on screens, our reading habits have adapted to skim text rather than really absorb the meaning. A 2006 study found that people read on screens
in an "F" pattern, reading the entire top line but then only scanning through the text along the left side of the page. This sort of nonlinear reading reduces comprehension and actually makes it more difficult to focus the next time you sit down with a longer piece of text.
Tufts University neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf
worries that "the superficial way we read during the day is affecting us when we have to read with more in-depth processing." Individuals are increasingly finding it difficult to sit down and immerse themselves in a novel. As a result, some researchers and literature-lovers have started a "slow reading" movement, as a way to counteract their difficulty making it through a book.