MetaFilter posts tagged with reading and internet

An ingenious device for avoiding thought...

smoke — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:56:20 -0800

The brain's plasticity has some neuroscientists worried about what the internet will do to reading - and to humanity. But teenagers - the very demographic you would expect to suffer most from the google-induced inability to focus and critique - are in fact reading more than ever. Or are they? Young adult fiction might be selling, but who's doing the reading?

Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind

stbalbach — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 08:50:43 -0800

Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind. Testing shows people "read" online text much differently than printed text. Before reading this extended description, I recommend reading the linked article and being conscious of your reading style, as discussed in the article. For those without the patience for reading longish articles online, here is the articles "nut":

In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects read Web pages linearly, sentence by sentence. The rest jumped around chasing keywords, bullet points, visuals, and color and typeface variations. In another experiment on how people read e-newsletters, informational e-mail messages, and news feeds, Nielsen exclaimed, "'Reading' is not even the right word." The subjects usually read only the first two words in headlines, and they ignored the introductory sections. They wanted the "nut" and nothing else. A 2003 Nielsen warning asserted that a PDF file strikes users as a "content blob," and they won't read it unless they print it out. A "booklike" page on screen, it seems, turns them off and sends them away.

Internet Literacy

ztdavis — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:26:02 -0800

When is reading reading? Or, rather, when is it good for you? The New York Times looks at how the internet is changing the ways we think and how we learn.

Self-publishing in an Internet Age, or, Web Comics Without the Pictures.

Caduceus — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:17:28 -0800

Pages Unbound is a portal for serialized web novels, similar to web comic portals such as Buzz Comix and Top Web Comics, if not nearly as fancy. It is a new project by Tales of MU author Alexandra Erin. Note: Tales of MU and some of the novels found on Pages Unbound may be NSFW, as they contain explicit material of various sorts. MU, specifically, is concerned with LGBT issues and racism in a fantasy setting.

Blake — Tue, 30 Jul 2002 04:15:42 -0800

It is not a crime to look at bomb-making websites... or so says Lieutenant Jason Ciaschini, police spokesman in Punta Gorda, where a Briton who was using a computer to look at bomb-making websites is now being held at Charlotte County Jail on immigration violations.
Florida police had evacuated the library and arrested him after he looked at bomb-making websites, and found suspicious liquids in his backpack.
"Looking up stuff on the Internet - everybody has freedom to do that," he also said.