

Being a Better Online Reader - bootload
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/being-a-better-online-reader

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mafribe
In my opinion all that hand-wringing about people no longer reading long text
misses a crucial point: long writing was necessary only where quick
contextualisation was impossible, i.e. before the invention of the web, search
engines etc. Books had to be long to give the reader the context so the key
idea of the text can easily be communicated. Hence long text is a consequence
of technological flaws of the previously dominant platform for text
distribution, printing.

The availability of the net, linking, search technology from google to grep
has changed all that. Not surprisingly, digital natives move away from long
text.

We should be happy that information transmission has become a tiny bit less
painful. That's not to say that there isn't a place for long, continuous text,
but it should be more an exception than the norm.

~~~
saturdaysaint
There are some subjects where quick context is adequate or even optimal -
coding and cooking have a lot of uses for quick snippets of knowledge - but
there are many, many subjects where deep context is necessary if you want to
achieve anything beyond cursory knowledge of the basic facts, let alone
expertise. I dare say that someone that's read a book about, say, any given
historical era or person, has a better understanding of it than anybody that's
done all of their reading on wikipedia.

~~~
minthd
>> I dare say that someone that's read a book about, say, any given historical
era or person, h

Usually history books are on the one hand, so full of details that you'll
probably never remember, and on the other hand, rarely condense the context
and present patterns and abstractions of the issue .

And unlike technical books , they are pretty awful at just-in-time
learning(like just answering a specific question about history), which is an
important mode of learning/knowing.

So if you count in long-term understanding and general usefulness, most
historical books aren't that great.

~~~
saturdaysaint
So are you saying the Wikipedia reader might have a stronger grasp of
historical subjects?

I chose history because it's dense on details, so a decent measure of a
medium's ability to impart deep knowledge of a domain - a strongly written
narrative is thus a powerful tool for bringing together a deluge of facts and
figures in a comprehensible and memorable way.

And whether or not "most" history books are unreadable is irrelevant to the
savvy reader, because the internet has also made it exceedingly easy to find
the _best_ books on any subject written by people highly skilled at putting
together the most memorable and insightful narrative with the most relevant,
up-to-date facts.

~~~
minthd
If we're talking about mediums for history,not sure about wikipedia, but i
think an high-quality, high volume forum witha good search , like
reddit.com/r/askhistorians [1] is a great one , better than books in many
cases.

And yes, maybe some books solve this, but it's very rare as far as i've
noticed. There's something about books, also evident in non-fiction that makes
people write too much unneeded stuff.

[1]It's far better to search this forum using google, using
site:reddit.com/r/askhistorians

~~~
saturdaysaint
Thanks for the recommendation but haven't you just pointed me to a forum of
heavy book readers? Every top answer I've read cites a book or a long form
journal article as its source. If you wanted to know one specific thing, I'm
sure this is a great resource (sincerely: thanks!), but I doubt the posters
themselves would recommend their own posts over the authoritative books they
cite if you wanted to develop anything like deep knowledge on a given topic.

This might be a great place to start, but if you actually wanted to make your
own deep connections about history or substantial ideas or wanted to
understand the economic/cultural/political/technical origins of well anything,
I'm astounded that people think they can cobble that from websites, let alone
ones that are decidedly not long form.

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barbs
I find it difficult to read longer articles on a computer, mostly because it's
so easy to get distracted by so many things - other links in the page, other
tabs in the browser and other apps open on the desktop. I tend to get easily
distracted reading printed books, however. Mostly my thoughts will wander, or
if I'm outside somewhere I'll get distracted by some sort of external stimuli.

I was actually thinking this morning, it'd be great if I could have some sort
of mode in Chrome that shows only the article I wanted to read, in full-
screen, with nothing else visible. And to encourage me to read the article to
the end before changing task, I wouldn't be able to change the tab (via CTRL-
tab or CTRL-pageUp/down), I would only be able to close the tab. I'm actually
not 100% sure this would help, but it would be an interesting experiment.

~~~
song
My solution for that is to read on my Kobo... Whenever an article seems like
interesting enough to warrant reading, I add it to pocket and then read it on
my ereader...

It's more comfortable and less distracting

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vanderZwan
> _" 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."_

Huh, I never thought of considering changing typography a context switch[0],
but it makes perfect sense. I guess that's why I like using the Readable
bookmarklet to standardise the typography of any article I read.

[http://readable.tastefulwords.com/](http://readable.tastefulwords.com/)

It's pretty easy to tweak too: I keep changing fonts every now and then,
whenever I find one that is more easy on the eyes. By now I have six different
versions bookmarked:

\- two for print (Serif, small & large print)

\- two for reading during the day (Sans, black text on white background,
different font sizes)

\- two for reading in the evening/at night (Sans, light grey text on dark grey
background, different font sizes)

[0]: Outside of computer science, "context switch" has been adopted in the
Interaction Design community (at least the one I'm in) to apply to humans too
- a well-structured UI requires less context switches of its user. It's a
pretty spot-on analogy in many situations.

------
kanche
Now a days I read mostly in kindle as it is convenient. I really miss flipping
pages to scan and go to a part in an earlier chapter for quick reference -
navigation is so inefficient in e-readers.

------
amelius
Here's an idea. Every paragraph should include a button saying "I'm lost".
When pressing the button, the user should be automatically taken back to the
most appropriate place in the document to continue reading.

------
easyfrag
Anyone aware of evidence on comprehension & retention of audiobooks? Obviously
that medium is not ideal for all subject matter but I've been recently
listening to a mix of fiction & non-fiction and found I'm immersing myself
much more than on paper or screen.

