I just finished digging into this so you don’t have to— his actual research article is the former (out of a cohort of 1200 people some scored higher on a test and after studying their brainMRIs there are some consistent differences).

The title and the stats about how much reading has declined in the UK from the conversation article seem to be just fluff for interest. The amount people read wasn’t a subject of the research (and wasn’t mentioned). I think the author was just trying to make his work more relatable but framing the article this way was a bad call imo.

Super interesting read! New frontiers for sure.

A lot of people get increasingly sentimental as they get older and the guy’s your dad. You don’t owe him anything and don’t have to engage at all, but he’d likely be grateful for even a surface level relationship with his estranged kid if you’re at all interested.