Article about serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming (character, story)

[phoenixmike11]

Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say - The Washington Post

The Internet and computers are changing the way our brains process what we read.

[Dockside]

We were talking about that story earlier and I don't believe it. I'm a librarian and our book circulation stats increase every year. If anything, patrons are better informed and more interested in reading about the topics they've skimmed online.

[phoenixmike11]

Craig Ferguson weighs in on reading: ‘It will be Oprah’s Tweet Club’

Craig Ferguson devoted his whole monologue the other night to this article.

[southwest88]

Originally Posted by phoenixmike11

Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say - The Washington Post

The Internet and computers are changing the way our brains process what we read.

Yes, well, reading - learning to read - is a linear process. There's a point when you can't read - when the eyes can't even focus very well. We progress to learning to focus, to paying attention to visual stimuli. People read to us (typically), and at some point we learn to associate the sounds with the text.

Then we learn to decode text into sound, sound into text.

There is a very big difference between printed text and screen text: screen text relies upon a whole complex of technology; energy to run the screen, call up the data, power the OS & so on. The hyperlinks and URLs and etc. rely upon an Internet connection - without the supporting framework of cell phone towers, big iron doing the heavy digital lifting, power plants and AC for the server farms, you've got a brick on your hands.

A single example of print - as long as you have light to read by & a fairly normal environment - not raining, no lava flowing by - you have everything you need to read your text. While the mass production of books is usually done by fairly heavy industry, it could be done by hand. Building a Kindle from parts would require a lot of skill, tools, techniques, a controlled environment - and would still not function optimally without the Internet to communicate with a server holding the desired texts.

I prefer print in vivo. The in vitro variety is interesting, showy, and is multi-layered - but in a trivial way. It's like the difference between the first Star Wars movie & the fourth one - the first one was long on character & spent a lot of time on the relationships among them. The fourth one was apparently driven by the SFX budget, to the extent that to me, it felt more like a very fleshed-out storyboard than a movie.