I have a habit of rocking ever so slightly back and forth when I read. Years ago a friend of mine, who was working on a graduate degree in education, jumped all over me for doing this. I’m not clear what her objection was, but she seemed to think that this habit indicated something bad that might get worse if I continued to allow myself to rock when I read.
Anyone have a clue what this is about?
Yes, I’m rocking back and forth as I read this in preview.
I don’t know, eyestrain maybe…
[sub]not that I know, for sure.[/sub]
Lots of people fidget when they’re doing something mental and non-physical. I can see that it might cause eyestrain, because your eyes would be moving more than they would if you were sitting still and reading. But if you’ve been doing it for years with no ill effects, I can’t see what her problem would have been.
IIRC (and again, this was years ago), she seemed to suggest it reflected a sort of mental or cognitive disability, and that I shouldn’t “encourage” it, so to speak, by indulging in this habit. Like I would be more susceptible to mental decline someday if I did it.
Huh??
IANA[whatever is appropriate] …
Even if it is indicative of some cognitive disability, it does not follow that indulging in the habit “encourages” anything.
The fact that I use music on headphones to block out distractions is, perhaps, indicative of my ADHD.
Indulging in the habit, encourages my concentration. The only decline I expect is in my hearing.
I’m rather pleased that when my wife suggested my habit to a friend whose 15 yo has ADHD, it made a world of difference in his ability to get his work done.
Tinker
Bill Gates does it all the time, apparently.
Rocking seems to be a common behaviour trait among autistic people. The media has sometimes drawn parallels between autism and “geekiness”; I don’t know whether there is such a link justified by any current psychiatric research. Of course autism has been portrayed in popular culture without really having been explained; in a forklorish way, becoming autistic from rocking seems akin to becoming permanently disfigured by making silly faces as a child.
Would you one day degenerate into Rain Man and start counting toothpicks and obsessively watch The People’s Court? Who knows. I say, rock on.
Tell her you’d rather take the risk of some future mental decline than be a nosy, interfering control freak right now!
But not if you still want to be friends with her. 
I rock. Ain’t nothing wrong with me.
I don’t rock anymore-chair squeaks too much.
I don’t think it harms you, though I’ve heard that reading while driving can make you dizzy…I don’t remember exactly why, maybe something to do with the inner-ear and balance. You’re moving but your eyes are focused on something else so you balance system gets thrown off. I could be wrong.
Are you a kinesthetic learner? Do you learn better by doing than by reading? This describes a number of my undergraduates, and many of them rock slightly while they read in class. This seems to help them focus. None of them are autistic. I’ve never read that one could “encourage” this “disability” by rocking; rather, I have read that it may be a helpful tactic.
I don’t rock when I read, but I do tell my students that as the instructor, I have an option that they generally don’t, which is to move around during the class.