Image courtesy of www.useit.com.
No, it’s not a modern reworking of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. Nor is it the lasting image from my 10th grade geometry final. Rather, it’s a symbol of how the Internet has transformed the way we think.
In recent years, usability experts have examined how we process web content. One of their tests involves eyetracking, or the tracing of the movement of the eye across a web page. From these tests, researchers can develop “heatmaps” that illustrate how much users looked at different parts of the page, with the color red indicating the most viewed areas. The heatmaps reveal that generally we read web content in an F-shaped pattern, taking in the first couple of lines of text then scanning down the left side of the page.
Recognizing this trend, content providers need to adjust their writing to accommodate our online reading habits. Keep copy concise. Front-load it with the most useful information. Provide a clear call-to-action. These measures will give your message a better chance of reaching its audience. [At this point, I should probably follow my own advice and rewrite this post ... nah!]
While the Big Red F enables us to create a more effective online experience, it also leads to a larger, nagging question: Is reading this way a good thing? Likewise, has having boundless information and connectivity at our fingertips damaged our ability to concentrate? Does multitasking actually diminish our productivity?
Image courtesy of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
These disturbing dilemmas are confronted by Nicholas Carr in his new book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. As the Net has become our information and communication medium of choice, Carr writes, we’ve also embraced its “uniquely rapid-fire mode of collecting and dispensing information.” For all the manifold benefits of the Net, we’re sacrificing our linear mode of thinking:
Calm, focused, undistracted, the linear mind is being pushed aside by a new kind of mind that wants and needs to take in and dole out information in short, disjointed, often overlapping bursts – the faster, the better.
The real-world implication of this shift is perhaps best summarized by a colleague of Carr’s who laments, “I can’t read War and Peace anymore. I’ve lost the ability to do that.”
For some, this trade-off is worth it; just another example of how technology inexorably changes life. And, of course, thinking differently doesn’t necessarily equate to thinking poorly. But for others, the breadth of knowledge the Internet offers cannot replace the depth of knowledge gained only through intense, sustained contemplation.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I going to try to get through Infinite Jest again … after I check my email … and Facebook wall … and Twitter feed … and ….
(Hat Tip: The Wall Street Journal Bookshelf)
Ah but War & Peace can now be read on your iPad or your Kindle. That makes it much more exciting for the rapid-fire junkie.
There is some movement towards distraction-less content presentation. Bookmarklet’s like “Readability” (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability) attempt to strip away “noise” on a web page leaving just the content. The latest version of Apple Safari has a feature “Safari Reader” that does something similar.
Is the Big Red F becoming a Big Red Capital-I ?