Countless hours spent online could be making us dumber, a new study has found. Victoria University researchers examined online reading habits, and have suggested changes may be needed in how the tech savvy generation is taught.
In general, online reading was found to have a negative impact on understanding. Skim reading and scanning was the most common online reading behaviour.
People were churning through more material, but they took a scattergun approach, and remembered little of what they had seen. "Multi-tasking when reading online was common, with activities such as reading emails, checking news . . . and viewing video clips providing distractions, which could have something to do with it," said Dr Val Hooper of the School of Information Management.
"People almost expect to be interrupted when they're on their computers."
The three main reasons people gave for reading online were information seeking, work or study and pleasure.
People still enjoyed reading books, magazines or e-readers, the study found.
Hooper and masters student Channa Herath said their research had implications for the way young people were taught: "I think it makes sense to look at getting messages across in ways in which readers expect to receive it now, rather than how it was given in the past. Long chunks of text aren't exactly going to appeal to today's students."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/60146334/getting-dumber-by-the-day-online.html
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