How to be a better online reader

Via The New Yorker, an excellent article by Maria Konnikova: How to Be a Better Online Reader. Excerpt:

Certainly, as we turn to online reading, the physiology of the reading process itself shifts; we don’t read the same way online as we do on paper. Anne Mangen, a professor at the National Centre for Reading Education and Research at the University of Stavanger, in Norway, points out that reading is always an interaction between a person and a technology, be it a computer or an e-reader or even a bound book. 

Reading “involves factors not usually acknowledged,” she told me. “The ergonomics, the haptics of the device itself. The tangibility of paper versus the intangibility of something digital.” The contrast of pixels, the layout of the words, the concept of scrolling versus turning a page, the physicality of a book versus the ephemerality of a screen, the ability to hyperlink and move from source to source within seconds online—all these variables translate into a different reading experience. 

The screen, for one, seems to encourage more skimming behavior: when we scroll, we tend to read more quickly (and less deeply) than when we move sequentially from page to page. Online, the tendency is compounded as a way of coping with an overload of information. There are so many possible sources, so many pages, so many alternatives to any article or book or document that we read more quickly to compensate. 

When Ziming Liu, a professor at San Jose State University whose research centers on digital reading and the use of e-books, conducted a review of studies that compared print and digital reading experiences, supplementing their conclusions with his own research, he found that several things had changed. On screen, people tended to browse and scan, to look for keywords, and to read in a less linear, more selective fashion. On the page, they tended to concentrate more on following the text. 

Skimming, Liu concluded, had become the new reading: the more we read online, the more likely we were to move quickly, without stopping to ponder any one thought. 

The online world, too, tends to exhaust our resources more quickly than the page. We become tired from the constant need to filter out hyperlinks and possible distractions. And our eyes themselves may grow fatigued from the constantly shifting screens, layouts, colors, and contrasts, an effect that holds for e-readers as well as computers. 

Mary Dyson, a psychologist at the University of Reading who studies how we perceive and interact with typography and design online and in print, has found that the layout of a text can have a significant effect on the reading experience. We read more quickly when lines are longer, but only to a point. When lines are too long, it becomes taxing to move your eyes from the end of one to the start of the next. We read more efficiently when text is arranged in a single column rather than multiple columns or sections. The font, color, and size of text can all act in tandem to make our reading experience easier or more difficult. 

And while these variables surely exist on paper just as they do on-screen, the range of formats and layouts online is far greater than it is in print. Online, you can find yourself transitioning to entirely new layouts from moment to moment, and, each time you do so, your eyes and your reading approach need to adjust. Each adjustment, in turn, takes mental and physical energy. 

The shift from print to digital reading may lead to more than changes in speed and physical processing. It may come at a cost to understanding, analyzing, and evaluating a text.

This article itself is clearly designed to be read on the crisp white pages of the magazine, not on its website: sentences are long, paragraphs are long (I've broken them up), and while it's in a single column, the width demonstrates precisely the difficulty of reading over-long lines.

Still, this article deserves careful attention if you write for the web—even if you have to print it out to ensure you really read it.

Comments

[saludpublicaaragon]

Great read, although through the laptop screen..
Thank you for sharing!

Regards
saludpublicaaragon

[Sergey Safin]

Great! As for me I guess an interesting information can have more significant effect on the reading preference than layout or typography. For example, read an article about the most ridiculous and worst baby names across the World. Cyanide, will you marry me? That sounds pretty good, don't it?)) Check out the others names here: www.naij.com

[Gunawan Dewa Saputra]

Reading is a positive activity that can increase insight. Not a few students who like to read or are nerds. Reading is very important especially since the world of lectures demands to study independently and explore information about material that has not been given by lecturers. http://news.unair.ac.id/2019/09/27/dunia-kuliah-kutu-buku-berorganisasi-atau-nongkrong/

[Gurpreet2307]

Really liked your article, as I love reading motivational and inspiring stories.

thanks for sharing