The document summarizes some of the key benefits and drawbacks of online reading compared to traditional reading. It notes that online reading is multimodal, interactive, personalized, non-linear, collaborative, and allows access to up-to-date global information for free. However, it also argues that online reading encourages speed over care, contains many built-in distractions, lacks clarity in authorship and purpose, relies too heavily on informal short text formats, and reduces exposure to longer form writing. Overall, the document examines how the internet and online technologies may be impacting the way people read and process information.

1. associationofcollegesintheeasternregion
Reading on line – why it is attractive...
• multimodal
• interactive
• personalised
• non-linear and expansive
• collaborative and participatory
• ‘read –write’ Web 2 technologies
• up to date
• global in coverage
• free

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Hypertext links and interactivity
‘reading on screen with
hypertext is comparable
to moving from the
passenger’s seat
to the driver’s
seat’
p7 Screens and Pages
- by Sue McKeown, Mary Moss
and Tracy Slawon

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The speed issue…
‘The technology primes us for speed, overwhelmed, we
are happy to have it help us speed up.’
Alone Together
p 166

4. associationofcollegesintheeasternregion
The distraction issue…
‘an ecosystem of interruption technologies…’
The Shallows – what the internet is doing to our brains
p 91

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Net Smart – how to thrive online
‘continuous partial attention, an always-on, anywhere,
anytime, any place behaviour that involves an artificial
sense of crisis’
p 58
Net Smart – how to thrive online

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Taken from ‘Deep Learning in an Age of Distraction’ a presentation
by Alec Couros
http://dmlcentral.net/resources/4835

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The transparency issue
‘Content comes to us already branded, already shaped
through the economics of sponsorship, if not over
advertising. We do not see how much these
commercial interests influence what we see and what
we don’t see.’
Confronting the Challenges
of Participatory Culture
p 16

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Technology and multitasking
‘the brain takes time to change goals, remember new
rules
needed for the new task and block out cognitive
interference from the previous, still-vivid activity’
‘switching costs’
P 133 The Shallows

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The genre issue
‘We are what we behold. We shape our tools and then
our tools shape us.’
Marshall McLuhan – Canadian communications theorist

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Reading on line – its drawbacks...
• it encourages speed rather than care in reading
• there are numerous in built distractions
• authorship and purpose are often unclear
• short, informal text formats predominate
• users are not exposed to the longer text types that
they may be required to write themselves
• in comparison, plain text on a page can seem flat and
uninspiring
• search engines reduce the need for readers to classify
information under heading

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Is Google Making Us Stupid?

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Is Google Making Us Stupid?
http://www.youtube.com/v/W86P_FX6PdI