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I wonder if reading rates have simply been declining in recent years because of phones, computers, TV, etc.
by eagsalazar2 7y ago
I wonder if reading rates have simply been declining in recent years because of phones, computers, TV, etc.
- CydeWeys 7y agoAlternatively, they could be increasing it. Computers have been exposing people to a lot more text in the modern technological era than they would've seen prior to it.
- strikelaserclaw 7y agoyes but how many people read whole articles rather than short bursts of text like comments, tweets, statuses, emails etc...
- dvdkon 7y agoI read a lot on my computer and phone. I could see the point with TV, but I think saying that reading speed is declining and that computers are to blame is ridiculous. Anecdotally, I've found computer literacy or usage skill to strongly correlate with the speed of reading and skimming. While it takes me or another computer enthusiast seconds to find an option in a busy menu, it may take some others a minute, which is a clear disadvantage.
- cecilpl2 7y agoI spend a fair amount of time walking users through new-to-them tools. These are all people who use computers for their 9-5. Some people are able to find a named option in seconds, and others struggle. I witness people moving the mouse down the menu like they are reading each entry in order, sometimes even going past the one they're looking for, at which point I usually point it out. I (and I assume maybe you) have a way of taking in the whole menu at once and pattern matching to the visual image of the word in my head. I don't read the words, I look for a visual match. The target word jumps off the page as quickly as if they were color coded.