If You’re Scrolling, You’re Gone.

Honestly, the last thing I thought I’d be doing this week is posting in every spare moment on technology and its influences on literacy. Help me.

Or humor me. The mysterious commenter Dave (at dave@dave.dave, apparently) kindly provides this fast and super fun article at Slate from just last week, on the actual means by which we read on line differently from paper text. Michael Agger, who has won my heart with his snarky use of Net-bold type alone:

Humans are informavores. On the Internet, we hunt for facts. In earlier days, when switching between sites was time-consuming, we tended to stay in one place and dig. Now we assess a site quickly, looking for an “information scent.” We move on if there doesn’t seem to be any food around.

Sorry about the long paragraph. (Eye-tracking studies show that online readers tend to skip large blocks of text.)

Also, I’m probably forcing you to scroll at this point. Losing some incredible percentage of readers. Bye. Have fun on Facebook.

Take or leave his wordplay, but I’m going to be be thinking all summer about the ramifications of the Net reading meta-approach this discusses. Could it be– could it– treated as a new genre of reading, unto itself?

H. Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 1:52 pm

“A new genre of reading” seems a fine way of looking at it, I think. Net browsing seems all very well if “hunting for facts” is what we’re up to, and maybe this kind of “power reading” is a more efficient way of acquiring “information” than reading books ever was. What about the cases where mere “facts” aren’t what we’re looking for, though? I see no way that browsing can replace deep reading as an approach to philosophy texts. The very idea that learning is about picking up a collection of bite-sized thoughts begs for … something more than a comment on a blog, I think

Dan Callahan Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

I don’t think it could be classified as a new genre, so much as a new medium.

Jen Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

Dan has a good point that it’s more of a new medium. Even when reading online we’re not always reading in the way Dave has described. We (most of us, I think) approach online reading in a variety of ways depending on the purpose, just as we approach reading in a newspaper in different ways depending on the purpose.

Benjamin Baxter Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

Breaking up long paragraphs is a good blogging skill to have, and I’m glad I learned it as a journalist because it helped in my blogging. There’s something about adding the bright screen into the equation that makes it harder to break up writing into recognizable, understandable chunks.

As much as I like Dr. Scott McLeod, I have trouble reading his long blocks of text on my computer screen. Though is style is perfect for a book, or even a magazine, it doesn’t work in newspapers and especially doesn’t work in blogs.

Kate Olson Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 7:00 am

Great find! The Slate article had a lot of good information, I’m glad you pointed us to it. I’ve found that when I analyze how I read, I have a lot better luck paying attention when there’s at least 1 image in a post and breaking up long paragraphs is a MUST. Actually the long paragraph thing applies to any reading I do. I’m an incredibly fast reader, but I really do skim a lot - even with books. Thanks for the great info to take into consideration when writing online.