Research has discovered
that people read online texts, whether blog posts or Facebook pages or news
stories, in an F–pattern [first line reading]. Pressed for time, the reader
races down, plummeting ever more quickly to the end of the article.
Slow Reading in a Hurried Age, David
Mikics
This is how I imagine such a reading pattern might
be represented:
I’ve been thinking about
this for two reasons. First, I find it impossible to read continuous text
online – and even print out long emails, so that I can concentrate on them
properly. Second, as a blogger I wonder if anyone ever bothers to print out my
blogs before reading them. Now, if they do not think them worth reading, fair
enough: sometimes, at least, because I
do not write down the first thing that comes into my head, and therefore the
reader might just miss something that
is, perhaps, just a little bit more interesting than a quick reading will
reveal. Which makes me wonder, when I look at the stats (page views) of my
blogs, just what they are telling me. Strictly, I am very much in the dark.
Someone may have Googled Cézanne, and accessed one of my blogs on this painter.
But that does not tell me that they have read it; or if they have, that they
have paid attention commensurate to the subtleties I have attempted to describe.
And, a few kind friends apart, I have not had any comments since December,
2013! Pointless to complain and that is not what I am doing. It is said – and I
am sure it is true – that teachers get more out of teaching than the students
they teach (for much of the time, at least). That’s how I tend to feel about my
blogs: in writing them I am forced to think, to get things down in words, and
often to change my mind about things. I gain a certain reasonable clarity, if
not some fluency, in doing this. And if someone, somewhere out there – ever so
occasionally! – gets something from this process, then that’s fine.
Endnote: I printed this piece out before posting it, and discovered
some repetitions, an infelicitous sentence, and a redundant comma. There is
nothing like paper in the hand (90 g/m+2 cream for preference!)
2 comments:
Peter, the decision whether or not to print out a document depends on whether I am likely to want to re-read or to refer to the piece at a later date. I’m happy to read on screen, though the longer the article / document the more likely I am to speed up my reading as I head towards the end - but I have to admit that is as likely to apply to my reading of novels as to blogs. Which is why slow re-reading is so important to me!
Many thanks for this, Adrian. Interesting that you tend to speed up towards the end of a novel. I cannot honestly say whether I do or not; though I would admit to being more inclined to read the last few chapters at a time when I am more tired than ideally I’d like to be: for the proper savouring of the dish! Beginnings are sometimes works of high art in themselves, and I’d probably give the Palme d’or to the first page of Great Expectations. And the relationship between Pip and Biddy in the same novel is – as with so much else – worth savouring and reading over and again.
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