Pixelgawker

By: Megan Deal

I’m inclined to think that the reading habits of students today are headed toward a slow decline. This, I feel, has little to do with the capability of students, but rather, is due in part to the way that information is received. With more and more intelligible information being posted on blogs and other online sites, the internet is becoming many student’s prime source, and often only source, for obtaining information. But with it’s immediacy and ease of access, I’m left wondering if students are really taking the time to contemplate and assess what they’re reading?

It would seem that many common everyday internet users, myself included, find long, densely written texts appearing online to be quite repelling. Though I’ve become increasingly interested in reading such articles, often intentionally searching for them, I’ve always found the need to hit PRINT before I can really start to analyze the text. My vexation in reading online documents has to do with a few key things:

1) I have trouble staring at a computer screen for the extended period of time such close readings often require.

2)I like to be able to highlight, notate, cut-apart, draw connections, or otherwise analyze the text that I’m reading, something that the computer screen (currently) keeps me from doing.

3) And perhaps the most noteworthy: I maintain these constant feelings of anxiety when reading online, that in part, are due to the shifting/updating/evolving nature of the web. (Take for an example a design blog. A blog never looks the same as when one leaves it last. The information is constantly developing or being added, all of which vies for the reader’s attention with each new visit. Compare this to the book that’s been sitting next to your bed for two months; when you eventually pick it up again and turn to the page with the folded corner, it will appear exactly as you left it.)

In her article, “Birth of the User,” Ellen Lupton notes that the “impatient” digital reader expects a different form of reading online, then they do in books. Rather then be in “processing” mode, online readers are in “search” mode. Instead of being “contemplative,” they expect to be “productive.” It is as if the amount of material collected from the countless number of online sources becomes more important then the texts themselves. Yet by casually gathering and bookmarking these sources, we’re really only collecting a pile of synonymous material, and in many cases not giving ourselves the proper amount of time to actually process the information, before moving onto the next latest and greatest source.

My intention is not to discriminate online users from reading. In fact, if you have the long-lasting attention span for it…congratulations. The internet is of course still the best way to distribute information to the masses, giving everyone equal opportunity to publish and/or access the same knowledge. What remains of interest to me is how the reading habits of online users may effect, or is effecting the way that one designs for print. Do our short online attention spans reshape the way that we read books? Are books still the most appropriate place for extended reading? How has the web configured a new generation of users, and in what ways will the reading habits of users/readers effect the way that we design?

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