Brains Adapting to a Different Kind of Reading Style

[speakingtohe]

I found it harder to immerse myself in a book about 10 years ago. I read less comprehensively and for much shorter periods. I also think I tended to skim/skip a bit more. I assumed it was a stage but it carried on for years. This was with paper books.

I actually read 'better' with an ereader oddly enough. I rarely skim or skip, and generally read for longer periods before getting tired or antsy.

I do read much faster on a computer monitor, but I know I skim a lot more and sometimes have to go back due to some weirdness where the words do not seem to reach my brain. Could be online reading, or could be just old age

Helen

[faithbw]

Originally Posted by kristalana

I've definitely noticed the change in my reading, not with regard to novels, but with magazines, and long-form journalism as they call it now. I used to be a lot better about reading really long articles but I'm really not anymore, my attention span is shot. With books though, I'm not sure anything has changed; I'm reading more of those if anything. Which I suppose makes sense, as blogs, forums, etc have replaced magazines for me.

I'm the same way and I don't know why. I can get through a book but long magazine articles are just pure torture for me now. I don't have the patience. I try to get through them but I fail almost every time now.

[fjtorres]

Re: "serious reading":
http://bookriot.com/2014/04/07/peril...ampaign=buffer

I love Gaiman (he makes excellent movies, especially when DeNiro is available) but sometime he gets too cute for his own good. (His 17th century Marvel series was, well, pointless...)

Everybody misfires once or twice...

[meeera]

No problem immersing myself in a book here, for hours at a time. I can still read novels in a single sitting (with the odd break to get tea or go to the loo).

What I don't get is why some stick-in-the-mud professors think that over-long sentences in archaic English are somehow "better"; as though reading or preferring that kind of language is some sort of gold standard.

Communication is "better" communication if it is effective. Storytelling is better storytelling if it gets the point across in an absorbing/entertaining/thought-provoking way (or all of the above). And yet some continue to judge everything by the standard of a now-distant past. It perhaps should be pointed out that that particular past - a literate, gentry-centric 19th century & very early 20th century northwestern Europe - is only the history of a tiny proportion of the world's population.

[QuantumIguana]

Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, and it is easy to be mislead by it. It leads you so accept uncritically things that seem to confirm your bias and to not examine anything that might contradict it.

We have anecdotes from people in their 40's that they don't have the patience for long, convoluted text that they used to, and conclude from this that this is a result of reading online. Alternative explanations are ignored: Perhaps when people get older, they lose patience with long, convoluted text, or perhaps they never really did have that much patience with it. Tests of the hypothesis are ignored.

We also have claims from some English professors that students can't read the classics. Alternative explanations are ignored: Were students of the past really that much more inclined to reading the classics, or is this just another instance of shaking of the fist at the younger generation? Such shaking of the fist does go back thousands of years, after all. Jane Austen seems to be at least as popular as ever, so people are reading at least some classics. The convoluted writing of some writers of the 19th century was out of favor long before the internet came about. The more time passes, the less accessible the writers of the past become. That has nothing to do with the internet, it simply is easier to read something written in a style you are familiar with, and the older a work is, the more the style differs from what is common today.

There is an anecdote of someone reading a book, discussing it at a group, and discovering that there were parts that went right over her head. From this, the author concludes that it must be skimming caused by reading online. Again, alternative explanations are ignored: long before the internet, people have observed that they get more out of the text on a second reading. Then why should anyone be surprised that they missed something on a first reading?

[latepaul]

I agree the article wasn't very good. It was argued from anecdata and alternative theories weren't really explored.

But it struck a chord. I was noticing, and unhappy with, a change in my reading experience before I read this article.

I guess I want to use this thread not so much to discuss whether the article per se holds water but whether others experience the phenomenon, what they think caused it and whether it can be reversed. The article was just a jumping off point really.

In that vein I'm fascinated to hear at least one story of this reversing itself, with Helen saying she's better able to get immersed in a book now than 10 years ago.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by latepaul

In that vein I'm fascinated to hear at least one story of this reversing itself, with Helen saying she's better able to get immersed in a book now than 10 years ago.

Being curious I decided to read a book on my monitor.

Because of this discussion I seem to be able to read every word and at a fairly fast rate. Faster than on my reader. But doing so is sort of a conscious process. Doesn't interfere with reading or comprehension AFAIK but who knows what I will remember.

Helps I am sure that it is a good story with likeable characters, no overly long descriptive parts or detailed explanations of everything that ever happened to the characters etc.

Too many books I just go blah blah mentally and skip whole paragraphs

Helen

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by latepaul

What experience has anyone else had with this? Do you think your reading style has changed? Can you still consume dense prose and convoluted sentences with relish? (assuming you ever did!)

Speaking for myself, my reading style has not changed one whit. In general, I skim news articles, whether they be in print or online. I can and do read long prose as easily as ever. In fact, I'm rereading Proust right now, in French. I have some advantages that not everyone else has in doing that, namely that I've read Proust a few times before, and I've spoken French most of my life.

I do find it easier to read Proust on an e-reader. It's my belief that the limited amount of text shown on an e-reader screen makes it easier to concentrate on those words than if the same text was printed in your average book.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

It's my belief that the limited amount of text shown on an e-reader screen makes it easier to concentrate on those words than if the same text was printed in your average book.

I'm such a contrarian I read dual column landscape even on my 5in PB360.
It helps me focus more in between page turns.

What I find helps me most is balancing white space: double space and added lines between paragraphs annoys me as does straight single spacing. I tend to go with 1.4 to 1.6 spacing and modest non-zero margins depending on the book. Which isn't something I can control on print books. So digital is way better for me.

[Prestidigitweeze]

That the web trains users not to sustain their attention seems obvious, since hypertext was famously designed by someone with ADD. But isn't the solution to mental skittishness to exercise your abilities by reading lengthy and/or challenging texts offline? How useful is it to shake your fist at the internet? If I have the tendency to eat laminated birdfat-infused Sugar Boulders™ because they're too easy to find in my local gas station, then should I burn down the gas station or spend more time in the produce sections of supermarkets?

As for videogames, I'm still waiting for them to develop into the non-stochastic art form that Robert Ebert said was impossible: A medium that effectively synthesizes movies, books and music, and can offer sandbox narratives that are completely player-determined down to style and visual details. Hypertext novels hinted at the possibility, but novelistic/cinematic games took the stochastic multimedia novel a lot further (cf. Fahrenheit, Ico, Hotel Dusk, Heavy Rain, Nocturne, Silent Hill 2 and Rule of Rose -- and that's only counting the Zeds).

[HarryT]

I was reading for a while on my iPad Retina Mini, but now I've gone back to my Kindle Paperwhite because I found there were too many distractions on the iPad, and I did find myself constantly breaking off from reading to browse the web, check my email, etc. A concentrated reading session works a lot better on the PW, and I don't find that I have the slightest difficulty in reading for 2-3h at a stretch.

I still use the iPad just as much as I did before for web browsing and email, but now I make a conscious decision to read a book on my PW, or to use the iPad.

[Prestidigitweeze]

A prolific novelist friend used to avoid upgrading his computer for the same reason -- only on the writer's side. He said he didn't need a computer that tempted him to watch movies or or slideshows of pretty pictures. Well into the late '90s, he still wrote using an ancient IBM computer with a monochrome monitor. I still remember the blinking cursor and endless scroll of green text.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

This, at least, is dead wrong. It is a healthy outlet for our natural aggressive instincts, thus preventing us from carrying out our fantasies in real life.

And as such, it should be a government-mandated part of our daily routine.

Well, now: maybe not...

http://www.cnet.com/news/video-games...-not-violence/

A new study suggests that, if a person acts aggressively after playing a game, the root cause is frustration over the game's difficulty.

Andrew Przybylski, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, and Richard Ryan, a motivational psychologist at the University of Rochester, conducted the first study that examines not just the content of the game, but the psychological experience it delivers. They found that the feelings of frustration and failure could lead to aggressiveness.

Like, duh, right?
Publish or perish, I guess.

[DiapDealer]

A new study suggests that, if a person acts aggressively after playing a game, the root cause is frustration over the game's difficulty.

"That's really hard! And I failed for the 100th time!"
"OK, who wants ice-cream?"

[5thWiggle]

A new study suggests that, if a person acts aggressively after playing a game, the root cause is frustration over the game's difficulty.

Doctor: "To help you deal with your aggressive tendencies, I sugest yoga and I'm prescibing a twice daily dose of CheatCodes.com"