The Downside of Online Reading


I follow a lot of blogs on RSS.  As of today, I have over 1000+ unread posts.  Google Reader doesn't even bother to tell me the actual number anymore.=)  Makurat unya ko.

The thing that I realized (ok I've known this for quite a while) is that I have shorter attention span and low motivation to read through long wordy posts, no matter how interesting they are.  I would read the start, skim over the middle and read the end... Not good.

It may be the distraction of all the clickable links, the other unread articles and the Internet culture of speed and immediacy that contributed to this.  Or the idea that we can easily go back to the post once a block of reading time becomes available.  Which never happens because there are newer articles that vie for our attention.

Still with me?  Good job!=)

If this phenomenon is happening to me, someone who didn't grow up with Internet or TV and loves to read, how much more for the younger folks who are exposed way earlier?  Commerce is only pushing this further by offering internet plans on mobile devices.  There is no going back.

Kids nowadays may think that living in the Jurassic age of no internet is unthinkable, but I sincerely believe we had it better.  It was more difficult in some ways (try researching at the library using card catalogs!) but it was simpler and more intentional, too.  This is why I still love my books, the words-on-paper variety.  With a good story and a comfortable chair, one can easily be the master of single-tasking.

This post started with me being annoyed at my superficial online reading and will end with a couple of short term goals: more offline reading (whatever happened to my one-book-a-week project?) and cleanup my RSS subscriptions.

Happy Saturday, everyone!

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