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I have nothing to add to this, just want to keep the link.

OK this is Mark Bauerline again, this time writing in the ChronicleReview.com with a rehash of the ideas he expounded in ‘The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future’ and particular emphasis on the discovery by Nielsen et al in 2006 that “Eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern”. Now, Nielsen’s discovery is actually not surprising since much if not most web content is designed to be skimmed in search for particular items rather than to be read completely; Nielsen both acknowledges other possibilities with his “often” and doesn’t claim any earth shattering implications other than to make reasonable conclusions about how to design web pages of the kind intended for skimming in such a way that that skimming will be effective. But Bauerlein infers a lot more. Mostly unfounded nonsense. …more »

Literacy Debate – Online, R U Really Reading? – Series – NYTimes.com

But what do they think I just did with that article? I read it online!

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My friend Gerry Pareja sent this article by John Naughton from The Observer, responding (I think very well) to Nicholas Carr’s ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?‘ in The Atlantic, but I can’t say that its arrival is what distracted me from my previous line of thought. In fact I was just tired, but feeling my need for sleep as a sign of lack of commitment-to-task prompted me to start also on my own intended response to Carr – and others who decry the influence of the web and other technology on our mental capacities. …more »

The Common Review: Spotlight