Archive for the 'Reading' Category

He Links Me, He Links Me Not

I’ve been following Nicholas Carr’s thoughts and writing since I picked up The Big Switch a couple of years ago (I analyzed one particular section of the book here on Tropophilia).  Shortly after that — right around when I was getting ready to move to California to join Google — Carr published  the very controversial piece “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” in The Atlantic. Since then, he has been developing and expanding his theory that the Internet is rewiring our brains for the worse.  He has just this month released the results in book form with The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains.

Carr’s central argument is that with the increased use of the Web comes a decreased ability to engage in long-form reading and deep thought.  Now, a while back, I blew up at another author who made similar claims without providing much, if any, causal evidence.  I am happy to see from a few of Carr’s recent shorter pieces that he at least relies on published research to back his arguments.

Calls for “Delinkification”

Believe it or not, I’ve actually just committed what Carr deems to be one of the primary crimes perpetrated by the Web against deep reading and thinking: inline, contextual hyperlinking.  He explains in a post (oops, I did it again!) on his blog:

The link is, in a way, a technologically advanced form of a footnote. It’s also, distraction-wise, a more violent form of a footnote. Where a footnote gives your brain a gentle nudge, the link gives it a yank. What’s good about a link – its propulsive force – is also what’s bad about it.

Carr describes a multiplicity of reasons why the link distracts from long-form reading and comprehension:

  1. The link, by its very existence, makes us pause in our consideration and comprehension of the overlying and surrounding text to make a decision: do I click this, or do I ignore it?
  2. If we choose to click it, we are taken to a different page completely.  Our brains must reset to prepare to capture and understand the new information.  We lose focus on what we were on before.
  3. The problem can compound if the new page itself has links for us to decide on, and possibly follow further away from the original document.

Carr concludes that “people who read hypertext comprehend and learn less, studies show, than those who read the same material in printed form. The more links in a piece of writing, the bigger the hit on comprehension.”

In his blog post, Carr cites a few experiments in “bottom linking” that seek to mitigate this allegedly attention-degrading practice.  It’s just what it sounds like: instead of linking within the text to other destinations on the web, one simply collects links at the bottom of the post.  I’ve seen this from time to time, and I don’t like it for a few reasons.

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The Future of Writing

I hesitate to even post on this, because I feel like I’ve written too many “does the dominance of computers spell the end of __________” entries over the life of this blog.  But for whatever reason, when I was out riding my bike this weekend, this question came into my head: what is the future of writing?  We’ve certainly talked about the future of reading here before, but what about its counterpart?

I don’t really have to write anything by hand at work (and actually, I think I’ve probably printed less than 30 pages for business purposes in the almost five months I’ve been at Google).  I do jot down a few bullets when an attorney comes by to give me an assignment, or I’ll throw a few reminders on a sticky note if I’m afraid I’ll forget something.  At home, I’m mostly electronic as well.  Besides signing checks, writing thank you notes, or putting together a grocery list, all of my personal “inputting” is digital.

Earlier this year when I was traveling for work, I decided to ask the young attorney I was assisting for tips from his days at law school.  His number one piece of advice to me was, “No matter what your classmates do, do not take notes on your computer.”  He went on to explain that there’s nothing wrong with taking notes on your computer, per se.  It’s certainly easier at the time of the notetaking to do it that way.  But by writing notes by hand, you a) spend that much more effort and time forming the words, and thus thinking about them; b) are not distracted by the dozen other things you can do on your computer instead of paying attention; and c) have that much more of a motivation, when it comes down to studying for an exam, to type up your notes.  This is what I did in college, and I think it played a large part in whatever success I had at tests (personally, I’d write a paper any day over taking a test).

Actually, the first time I did this was in 9th grade.  When it came time for my biology exam at the end of the year, our teacher told us that we could bring in one 5″x8″ index card with whatever information we wanted on it.  Already a computer geek by that age, I decided that I’d do this on the computer where I could type and print much smaller than I could write.  I spent most of the weekend before the exam on that card: inputting information from my notebook, moving it around, and organizing it so I could find it quickly and easily on test day.

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Stepping Back from the Mac

Last Tuesday, my otherwise trusty MacBook sputtered out for the second time in six months.  In February, I returned home to find my white plastic-encased sidekick unable to boot up.  One new hard drive later, I was back in action (Apple’s awesome Time Machine utility saved me from any data loss).  Unfortunately, I had to relive this scenario last week when my MacBook wouldn’t revive after a routine reboot.  And so it was, after a painless call to AppleCare tech support, that I shipped my MacBook off to let the wizards work their magic on my poor, sick machine.

(Don’t worry, Mac lovers, this isn’t a hate-on-Apple post.  I’d much rather have my backed-up MacBook die every six to twelve months, and be bug-free in the interim, than have a constantly bogged down PC frustrate me on a daily basis.  What’s more, AppleCare was impeccable with their service.  I called them on Wednesday, and they had a box to me for my MacBook on Thursday morning.  They received, repaired, and reshipped it on Friday, and it’s been in D.C. since Saturday.)

In the period between shipping my computer to Apple’s repair depot and this moment, I’ve enjoyed a nice weekend away from the computer.  It’s true that I cheated a little and used my roommate’s iMac to do some quick e-mail checking and such.  And although I don’t exactly count the Kindle as a computer, I did spend some significant time with it as well.  My computer vacation, though,  has made me realize just how much of my free time revolves around my laptop.

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Old Media Attempts New Media: NY Times Reader and MSNBC Spectra

Do two of something constitute a trend? Assuming that the two examples I’ve encountered are not the only instances of the “trend” that I’ll describe, let’s say that the answer is yes. Folks, we’re seeing a trend (that’s right, I said it) of old media giants (the NY Times and NBC News/MSNBC) attempting to capture some slice of the new media market by introducing what I’ll call “selective aggregator” software programs.

The examples I’ll write about in a moment are “selective” insofar as they focus a user’s attention EXCLUSIVELY on content produced by the respective news company. The programs are aggregators in that they function (theoretically) by responding to the information preferences and desires of users, aggregating information into a single interface. The two examples I’ve seen are NY Times Reader for Mac and MSNBC Spectra.

I read a number of blog posts a few weeks ago about the beta release of NY Times Reader for Mac (screenshot at right). It’s essentially an on- and off-line freestanding application that is intended to mimic the experience of reading an actual NY Times paper in a way that the NY Times website and RSS feeds do not. The program is a free download in beta phase, but will likely be a $14.95/month investment when it is released in full. From the Times site:

In building Times Reader for the Mac we’ve focused on providing the core set of features that have made the PC version popular. These include the easy-to-read paginated format, the ability to view the paper offline, a seven-day archive, text search, the ability to adjust the font size and access to Premium Crosswords.

Particularly in the near-term, a product like the reader application could* provide a nice entry point for more traditionally-minded readers who want their daily NY Times fix but are turned off by the (oftentimes overwhelming) NY Times homepage.  These same readers are unlikely to subscribe to feeds, so a freestanding application could hold a great deal of appeal.

As for geeks like me, it’s not a tool I would use–particularly not if I had to pay for it.  The same desire for one-stop reading that makes me VERY selective of which articles I’ll click through from the NY Times feed on Google Reader makes me loathe to open a separate application in order to access limited content.  This is in many ways a band-aid instead of a novel solution to lagging readership: the features are focused on the past, not the future.  Offline readibility is great, but if the Times offered full articles through their feed, we could view it offline in Google Reader just like most blogs.  Likewise, an advertisement-free interface is nice but (I would contend) less important to younger users who are accustomed to ignoring banner ads.

I found MSNBC Spectra through a simple one-line recommendation on DailyKos: “Woah, this is cool.” I felt the same way…for the first 20 seconds I used the application. Then I became nauseous and convinced that this is, in fact, the dumbest idea I’ve ever seen. Let me explain.

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Kindled

My birthday was last week, though I unfortunately had to spend the majority of the day taking an evil standardized test.  How’s that for bad timing?  My parents were gracious and awesome enough to offer me an Amazon Kindle for my birthday, which we’ve written about some before.  Now, after about a week of fairly regular first-hand use, I’m ready to offer some more thoughts.

When I first turned it on and downloaded a free sample chapter, the thing that most struck me about the Kindle was that, man… this thing is slow.  Every button press is followed by at least a one second pause — a considerable delay in today’s high tech world.  For a device that promises to usher in the next evolution of reading, I was perplexed at first.  Where’s the gee-whiz slickness, the instant page-turns, the animation?  (Amazon’s explains the slight delays by pointing to the E-Ink display, which at its current stage of development requires a little longer to render).

Ironically enough, however, I’ve almost come to appreciate the delay.  Just as the E-Ink display mimics the ocular experience of the printed book, so do these delays mimic the time required to turn a page.  It’s a subtle reminder when you continue to the next page that it is just that — a new page.  You don’t scroll to the next screen on the Kindle; the scoll wheel is only used to access the menu and other features.  You have to take the time to hit a button and wait as the screen momentarily flashes dark, and then rekindles (ha) with the next segment of text.  That brief second gives you a chance to process the page you just read, to look out the window for a moment, to readjust the device in your hands.  Looking back at the past week, I’m not sure now that I’d want it any other way.

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