I don't feel like it makes reading interactive, so much as it makes reading laborious. Regardless of the quality, context, or merit of the picture, it's still a

I don't feel like it makes reading interactive, so much as it makes reading laborious. Regardless of the quality, context, or merit of the picture, it's still a large, obtrusive break in the narrative. Paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, and then a couple of long drags on the mouse wheel until the structure resumes. If anything, this actually keeps me from getting hooked as my concentration and attention are being interrupted every couple of minutes. And I don't think this is related to my ripe old age of 34, either. I appreciate what this style of presentation is trying to do; look like a magazine. But reading in a browser is a much more linear experience than a magazine, where text is often in columns that split and resume on the same page; that's a design pattern we have had a century (or more?) to get used to. Further, in a magazine, we usually have the option to ignore the pictures at our leisure, which is simply not an option here. It looks cool, I'll grant that, but it's otherwise a distraction.