korrents

korrents · piece

Why Reading Matters

Cal Newport · 13 Jul 2026 · calnewport.com

2 korrents from this piece

Cal Newport did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. essentially every cultural attribute that we celebrate – from human rights, to logic, to progress, to the very notion of an independent self – are conceptual children born from the mind-shaping power of the written word.
  2. We should treat highly distracting digital garbage like junk food – something we largely avoid – and purposefully schedule a non-trivial amount of time each day to read, write, and self-reflect, just as we now dedicate time to walking, jogging, and weight lifting.