How Do I Read Thee, Let Me Count The Ways

Like everyone, I am presented with an opportunity to read stuff. Everyday I get links to the latest, greatest, mind expanding articles. Each one is a revelation, an epiphany, and of course 'awesome'.

Hypefully Speaking

According to the linkster, nobody in the universe has ever quite explained it this way. Apparently, I should feel fortunate just to be allowed to read it. Sometimes I get lucky. But most of the time it's a picture of a cat. Not just any cat though. This one has a funny quote on the picture. Awesome.

Today I Got Lucky

The members of The Circadians are not only voracious readers, but they have a high bar for article sharing. All of their shares are interesting, but sometimes they share something that should be required reading. This was one of those shares.

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age

The Science of Paper versus Screens was shared by Circadian +Pat Zalewski. Her question seemed simple enough. "Do you have any preferences?". I figured "What the hey. This will take between 5 and 10 minutes. So I followed the link, to see what she was talking about. Somewhere around twenty minutes I think my head exploded. My reply to her thread was something along the lines of 'I'll get back to you.". You'll probably need to read the article to follow this. But maybe not. It depends on how you read.

How Do You Prefer To Read?

There really isn't much of a simple answer on this. There's a difference between reading and learning. At any point, in any article, your brain can change gears. You transform from a reader to a learner in a split second. Odd as it sounds, in this article it didn't happen to me until the very last sentence in the article. "But text is not the only way to read." It suddently occured to me that you can read things just by looking at pictures. Our brains automagically translates those images into stories, which is made up of words. This made me go back over the article, to see what I had missed.

Turns Out, I Missed A Lot

There is a tremendous amount of information in this article, in fact...too much. To study and learn from it would require a couple of hours, at a minimum. The learning process in an article like this becomes fragmented because as the article says 'they spend more time browsing, scanning and hunting for keywords compared with people reading on paper, and are more likely to read a document once, and only once.' And yet, here I was reading it a second time. Us Circadians are a different bunch.

Comprehension or Retention? Make Your Mind Up

And as they point out "In turn, such navigational difficulties may subtly inhibit reading comprehension.' Well, that depends on if the reader has a goal or not. Are they even trying to comprehend, or are they simply looking for a solution. There is a benefit to being able to find solutions via digital input providing specific answers quickly. For example, 'How do I boil an egg?' would require: Here are the steps. Now go forth and cookery.
And some subjects, require long term learning via quick fixes. I think that's the part that has to be addressed by the business community.

I Just Want To Get It Done

For example, let's take Circadian +Jackie Hutchings dive into the SEO pool this week. Will her work in that arena pay off in long term dividends? Maybe, but maybe not. It depends on what happens once the searchers 'find' Zlimm via an organic search result. Have the proper tools been setup for "conversion." Just learning what conversion means requires another swim in an Olympic sized pool. And once they are converted, will they be retained. And if retained, will they become evangelists? Each and everyone of those subjects take you deeper and deeper into the abyss. It never ends.

And That's When It Hit Me

I'm completely under qualified to write about reading habits. I can discuss them from my viewpoint, but I can't really talk about them in the same way Ferris Jabr can. Ferris has studied this subject for years. Ferris has forgotten more about it than I'll ever know. Maybe not. (follow the link ..hint hint nudge nudge). Turns out Ferris must also be some sort of stem cell scientist as well. Or, maybe Ferris is a personal trainer. Or maybe Ferris just plays one on TV. I don't know. What I do know is that without following the links about Ferris, you just learned something about him. And only you know what that is.

We Assume More Than We Should

You may have assumed that Ferris was a psychologist focused in the field of usability. Or maybe he's working on his doctorate in digital studyology. You might have even assumed that I am busting down on Ferris. Well, just in case you haven't heard it before, when we assume things, we make an "ass" out of "u" and "me". And these days, we assume way too much. We assume things because we have a picture in our head of what stuff means. Fat means lazy. Lazy means poor. Poor means they aren't happy. None of those are necessarily true.

What Is True?

+Josh Patrick is right about starting with the 'Why". Ask yourself "why are you reading about "insert subject here". Are you looking for an actionable solution, or are you looking to become an expert. If you want to be an expert, be sure to match your learning materials to your learning preferences. If you're looking for an actionable solution then Cliff Notes will work just fine. Choose the method to match your why, and choose your material carefully.

You can't read, study and comprehend all the information on the planet. I know. I've tried.