Monday, July 26, 2010

Does skimming short texts on the internet make us stupid?

Patrick Kingsley, "The art of slow reading" (The Guardian, July 15, 2010) -- [Just skim this ... and LOOK: I've even done your preliminary skimming FOR YOU!!!]:
If you're reading this article in print, chances are you'll only get through half of what I've written. And if you're reading this online, you might not even finish a fifth. At least, those are the two verdicts from a pair of recent research projects – respectively, the Poynter Institute's Eyetrack survey, and analysis by Jakob Nielsen – which both suggest that many of us no longer have the concentration to read articles through to their conclusion.

The problem doesn't just stop there: academics report that we are becoming less attentive book-readers, too....

So are we getting stupider? Is that what this is about? Sort of. ... we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts.

Which all means that although, because of the internet, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of factual titbits, we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other.....

Still reading? You're probably in a dwindling minority. But no matter: a literary revolution is at hand. First we had slow food, then slow travel. Now, those campaigns are joined by a slow-reading movement – a disparate bunch of academics and intellectuals who want us to take our time while reading, and re-reading. They ask us to switch off our computers every so often and rediscover both the joy of personal engagement with physical texts, and the ability to process them fully.
[Hat tip to C.G.-Z.]

6 comments:

Nick said...

There are some distinctions that need to be made here.

Skimming over posts is often necessary, especially if you follow multiple blogs on Google Reader and don't have time to read them all. I know that many blog posts out there are not worth my time but none the less by skimming I can keep an eye out for what's going on in the Catholic, Traditionalist, and Protestant spheres.

There is no denying the fact that there is literally so much new 'information' being pushed every day that skimming is the only way mathematically a person can keep up.

On the other hand, there are folks who are not into reading/learning at all, and they are negatively affected by simply reading short texts as the bulk of their reading diet.

One of the big problems with why people are not reading books anymore is that when people are encouraged to read books by their library they are encouraging folks to read books with no substance that simply made the NYTimes "best seller" list. Imagine all the millions of kids who spent their time and energy reading Harry Potter books (6 books at 300 pages each) but don't have time or energy to read a 30 page Encyclical or Life of a Saint, or (gasp) even an NT Epistle or three. They had time to read 2,000 pages of hogwash fluff but no time to read 100 pages of Christian (or even classic) literature.

Anonymous said...

My expertise is in banking, bank accounting, real estate appraisal, credit/loan analysis, etc.

Almost everything I read on the net related to the current banking/housing crisis, including that coming out of the House and Senate Banking Committees, is either incorrect or narrative-driven data mining; and many post seem used to fuel class envy (executive bonuses, "bail outs", etc.), or meant to advance the Obama agenda (which is how we got here); or advance the opposite agendae.

Bloggers could easily be "fisked," but many censor comments so they may never learn the difference between $h!t and shinola.

Unbelievable as this may be: commenters are even more ignorant than bloggers.

I don't waste on them my limited reading time, but I believe many academics feverishly pursue narratives (they like): not the truth.

Dark Horse said...

This is off-topic, but so was the comment above by Anonymous. And not to slam "expertise" or the importance of "the truth," as such, but since Anonymous brought it up:

Does this mean that "expertise" is never "narrative driven," that the "experts" who teach economics are never "agenda driven," "pursue narratives they like," or are beyond "fisking"? Is there a view of "the truth," which is not perspectival?

That's not the conclusion I draw from watching experts regularly interviewed on FOX News, MSNBC, CBS, etc. The distinction drawn by Anonymous between "expertise" and "agenda-driven" blogs and their commentors just seems a bit too "neat" to be real.

Anonymous said...

"Ago, agere, egi, actum" is the verb. "Agenda" is the neuter plural of the gerundive, meaning 'things to be done.' Like 'data' it has no other plural in English use.

Anonymous said...

Dark Horse,

I'm with you 100%. It's even worse with experts. I'll return to this later.

Academics ought to be more truth driven. At least they should delineate all background material, facts and theories; and weigh the preponderance of evidence to arrive at the conclusion = near truth. And, truth may be agenda/narrative driven - we are fallen and the world is imperfect. Finally, many issues (economic and political) contain hundreds of variables, and millions of rational actors (supposedly) acting in their own best interests.

Back to experts: Many disagree because they are advocates for their clients. US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) are written in such a way that there is plenty of wiggle room. Real estate appraisals (e.g., discounted cash flows, but also sales comparables, and cost analyses) have so many inputs and assumptions and forecasts that they greatly can be "gamed." For instance, low cap/discount rates inflate DCF appraised values.

Bottom line there are at least two sides to every story and it is dishonest to omit all info that does not support the agenda/narrative.

Plus, (my sixth sense): I see ignorant people. Often on the net, bloggers/commenters that know nothing write as if they were experts.

PS: Since Milton Firedman went to his reward, I have almost no use for academics that also are economists, or vice versa. An econ prof blogged in the height of the housing bubble that "What could go wrong?" Guys like me knew and they didn't listen.

Sheldon said...

I'm glad to see someone else likes Friedman. He certainly had his insights.