Computers/Internet Change the Way We Read
How the Web changes your reading habits, from the Christian Science Monitor.
Computers and the Internet are changing the way people read. Thus far, search engines and hyperlinks, those underlined words or phrases that when clicked take you to a new Web page, have turned the online literary voyage into a kind of U-pick island-hop.
We've got a long way to go before books can be replaced by an online equivalent, IMHO. Books are portable, perfect for the beach or the waiting room at the dentist, or the flight. They're not limited to 96dpi...
Do people really find the book obsolete?
2 Comments:
At 12:27 PM, AJ said…
I bought my first modem in seventh grade (300bps). Hyperlinks aside, computers changed how I read and, even more so, how I write.
By high school essays were always homework assignments, so I didn't notice. In college I took the Graduate Writing Proficiency Exam on paper. I easily passed, but the test struck home how different it is to organize ideas on paper in advance. Pure frustration. Whereas, on the computer I jump around writing portions of text and connect them later. Reading is the same in some situations, skimming and skipping around, doing a keyword search and such.
I read volumes online -- all sorts of material -- but I rarely read paper books for pleasure. Most of my printed books are educational / instructional materials, but I mainly used them as look-up references. I prefer learning from web pages. Paper books are just so limited, so confined.
I look forward to the day we have inexpensive high resolution e-books... but only if they are more like computers in functionality and less like printed books.
At 3:22 PM, Mark Sicignano said…
I used to be like you as well, where my reading was primarily work related... programming books and reference manuals.
I think you're point that paper books being "limited/confined" is a good point, in the context of reference books.
There the goal is, "Get in, get the information, get me to related sections quickly, and get out." To me, that's not reading. It's research, or it's a quick lookup function. Computers ARE great tools for facilitating this.
When people read books for pleasure, whether it be fiction or non-fiction, the goal isn't to get bits and pieces from here and there. It's to start at the beginning, and work through the story, to the end, in a linear fashion. Not skipping parts and only honing in certain aspects only.
Good points about writing... It's definitely nice to be able to organize your thoughts, re-organize, ad infinitum, until you have your final product and computers are great for that.
I think it will be very interesting when we do have an ebook platform that gives me 300dpi, flicker-free, 8"x10" minimum that I can carry around with me... but what if I drop it into the sand at the beach... Hmmm.
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