http://news.com.com/Reading+phone+text+one+word+at+a+time/2100-1046_3-5785579.html?tag=st.prev
In India, Rediff.com, a portal that many consumers access through cell phones, the company is working on ways to restructure news stories to make them more palatable on mobile devices. One idea, already implemented, involves writing quick summaries of news stories and drastically limiting the length of news stories.
Brings to mind a recent discussion I had with Smita about evolution of news stories as presented in magazines and newspapers over the last three decades that I have been reading critically. The NYTimes and WSJ are the only newspapers where articles demand that you sit and read stories vs. just scan them (though the local San Jose Mercury News will occasionally do a set of long pieces that merit mention).
Having depth and dimension to an article encourages me to graze rather than snack on the information. The grazing leads to a wholly different experience of the material than the snacking. The reading medium interacts with the content to shape our reading habits and as we shift from paper to the screen as the primary medium, it is changing reading habits. Reading used to be a contemplative activity and now seems more like a game of competitive flash-cards.
The curmedgeon is feels pessimistic sometimes. Its nice to know that for all that, Smita and I have at least with my teen, brought up a reader who does appreciate the long graze to the quick snack despite her immersion in a modern MTV styled world with a short attention span. Perhaps the nightly ritual of reading to her and letting her thoughts ramble around the material had something to do with it...
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