Reading on the web

Over at the American Scene, Alan Jacobs posted his thoughts on how the internet might be changing the way we read:

I don’t think that the internet makes reading skills worse — in fact, as Crain reports, there are studies indicating a positive correlation between internet use and academic performance — but I think the internet does help us to understand just how poorly many people read. The key, I think, is that when we’re surfing the web we are in such close proximity to the tools of writing.

He continues:

I can only speak personally and anecdotally here, but it’s continually surprising to me how often people commenting on online articles or blog posts respond to something the author never said — in some cases never even came close to saying. People gather an impression from their reading, and then formulate a response based on that impression — but how often do they pause to test that impression, to re-read to discover whether the impression was right?

Speaking from my own experience, I’m certain the internet has made me a poorer reader.
The problem for me is not the proximity of tools for writing, as Jacobs suggests, but actually the foundational element of the web itself: the hyperlink. The basic way the web ties content together fundamentally interrupts content’s stream, and interrupts our concentration.

Look at it this way: Every hyperlink is a doorway, prompting readers to make a decision. Do we click, and see what lies beyond, forgetting what’s immediately at hand, or do we stay and finish what we started? Just when the imagination is whirring up, focusing in and blocking out distraction, the hyperlink offers a rabbit trail only a click away.

Just try reading this sentence and staying focused. The highlighted and underlined link has become a form of punctuation itself, but rather than giving further meaning to the current text, it can only become meaningful if the reader shifts attention to something else. Bolding or underlining letterforms used to provide emphasis or forcefulness to the meaning of a word in its larger context of the sentence or paragraph. But on the web, these symbols actually weaken the word and its surrounding context. The hyperlink fractures reading.

When I worked in the newspaper business, there was (and still is) a huge push to make papers more competitive with the web in their presentation and style. This meant shortening stories, printing bigger photos, moving a lot of news from traditional story presentations to punchier, bullet-point forms, shrinking page sizes, etc. (for a good example, see the Chicago Redeye). The papers assumed that the web (along with television) destroyed our ability to concentrate. Unfortunately, making this assumption means that newspapers are giving up the things that make them unique in the ranks of modern media: the long, engrossing story and the possibility of an uninterrupted read.

UPDATE: I realized I forgot to link to Alan Jacobs’ original piece. Error corrected!