Do You Skim?

Most of us skim to get the basic meaning without reading every word. This may work well when trying to spot keywords in articles or Web pages, but when skimming replaces reading the consequences can be unexpected.

• If I skim the news, I may know a detail or two but not understand the context or relationships on which events hinge.
• If I skim my latest Bill Bryson travel book, I will know a few things about a few places, but I may miss out on his experience of the journey.
• If I skim my wife's emails to me, I am bound to miss something that I will need to know. This happens frequently.

If I do this all the time, my ability to read deeply may be altered. At least this is the message in a new article by Marianne Wolf entitled, Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound. Understanding the complexities of prose or legal documents or other professionally authored works cannot be accomplished by skimming. It takes a slower read and can take some effort.

I am happy to see my granddaughter curl up for extended periods of time with Harry Potter books.  Maybe she's skimming, but I think she's enjoying the experience too much for that to be the case.

We teach skimming to speed up the keyword recognition process. But when it comes to evaluation, a slower read is necessary--otherwise, how can you detect bias or factual inconsistencies? Skimming is perfect for consumers of fake news: don't read too much and don't think too hard about what you read.

I encourage you to read the full article.  I think I'll spend more time seeing how catty Bill Bryson can be.

Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound.

Seeing the Not So Obvious

I love this sign. I first came across it yesterday as I was trying to find a Prezi on 'achieving information fluency' I thought I had uploaded. Here's the file I was trying to find, but in the process I searched Prezi for the title and found this instead. If imitation is flattery, I'm pleased to see our Model of Digital Information Fluency being replicated on the Web, albeit a bit deconstructed and the source not cited (tsk, tsk, tsk)*.

But back to the picture. It seems an appropriate metaphor for the type of skimming that untrained searchers do. Notice I didn't say 'students.'

Almost any Web page has information clues that may be valuable, but go overlooked because something else obscured the clues or made the information seem irrelevant. That's the message of the sign. If you can't read it, the small print at the bottom says "Also the bridge is out ahead."

Elsewhere I've likened this carelessness to prospecting for gold and leaving nuggets lying on the ground in plain sight.

Whether it's information about ownership or authorship, freshness, structure, purpose, accuracy, bias, etc., there are clues to be found.

Starting to see the not-so-obvious is sure to involve the following:

• read with purpose - does the information match expectations or the reason you clicked on the page?
• slow down - sifting through mountains of details is something that would seem to take speed, but it may take longer because of overlooked information;
• don't let the obvious stuff distract you, stay on track (n.b. - there is a counter-argument that I subscribe to when the purpose is creativity and inventiveness (in that case distractions may help);

If you have a fourth point to add to this list, I'm open to it. Comments please.

Here's a Challenge to test that hypothesis. Try the Broadway Challenge: Find the URL of a site that lists the number of shows to open on Broadway since (and including) 1984.


Google some keywords (e.g., Broadway shows 1984) and skim the first page of results. The answer is there. Do you see it?  What clues give it away?

This Challenge used to be a lot harder when it was first created. Back then you had to find a database of Broadway shows. That's no longer necessary.

* As for the origin of the sign, of which there are many copies online, any clues?

Is the Internet Making Us Stupid?

Multi-tasking and the Internet, both are suspected of making us more stupid.

From Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing (lecture) to an HP study of online multi-tasking (article), to Nicholas Carr, author of "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (NPR interview),  there are plenty of warnings against too much of a digital thing.

Ironically, I found all the warnings online.

To a certain extent, I agree that people do a lot of stupid things online. They waste a lot of time and manage to overlook what they are looking for. They accept online versions of a story they would never believe if it were told to their face. They copy and paste, oftentimes reproducing falsehoods or violating guidelines of fair use.

One of the observations Nicholas Carr makes is that shallow reading (skimming, jumping from one thing to the next) commonly occurs online. This has made it harder for him to engage in deeper reading. The temptation is to fall prey to "Internet-influenced attention deficit disorder."

Maybe it's the sheer volume of stuff to read or the tendency of web designers to recreate the equivalent sensory overload of Times Square that turns us into skimmers and multitaskers.  I don't know for sure, but I can relate.

Some of the deepest reading I've done has been online. For me, investigative searching provides balance for shallow skimming and relentless surfing. Taking a little time to track down the source of information, determine if inaccuracies have been overlooked, becoming familiar with who links to the information--these represent deeper thinking. In fact, I've probably done more deeper thinking online paying attention to clues on which credibility depends than I've done with works in print. Juried or edited works in print tend not to require as much investigation.

I don't need to belabor the point. A habit of investigating online information is bound to make one smarter rather than dumber.

Mindless Internet usage, on the other hand, can be a stupid pastime.

Try an Investigative Challenge: Use It or Lose It?