Read me?

'Reading the paper' by State
Library of Victoria Collections
under a CC license

This time, I'll stay clear of food science and, for a change, I'll start with the bottom line:

We live busy lives, we do a lot of necessary or not-so-necessary things, most of which compete for our attention. That is why reading has become so difficult. That is why reading (long articles) online doesn't really stand a chance!

Here, I got it out of me. So now I can start again, the normal way this time. But I promise to keep it short. I have to.

I met a friend the other day and, at some point during our conversation, just after starting the 2nd pint, if I recall correctly, I vaguely mentioned something about this blog. The response I got was shockingly honest: "Yes, I know you blog but I haven't read any of your posts." That was the point I started thinking "Hey, you are supposed to encourage me or, at least, discourage me in a gentle way and you have just done neither". Instead of speaking my thought, I took another sip of my beer and said nothing.

The truth is that we get easily distracted. It is not a new thing. After all, distraction is nothing more than an attention shift from what we currently do onto something else. In our cave times, lying on the grass and getting distracted by the sound of animals fleeing at the sight of a hungry tiger could have been a life saver. This is certainly different to reading an article online and getting distracted by a twitter notification but the underlying mechanism remains the same.

There have been studies on that, both academic and informal, such as that on Slate. There are indications that the way we read and interpret, itself, is changing. Some of the observations, such as word/ page scanning, apply to both online and printed media. Regardless, they all seem to converge to the conclusion that keeping our attention on long online articles is tough. Some studies move onto providing advice for content developers (well, in this case, that is me). In brief, the things to do are:

• Put important things on top
• Use emphasis in a way that facilitates page scanning
• Keep it short and simple, avoiding unnecessary web design bells and whistles
• Use photos/ videos/ media contextually related to the text

I promise I'll try to stick to those rules. Although I'm not sure if all of those can be followed every single time. I may give it a try on a post on acrylamide in food.

And for those of you loyal enough to stay undistracted till the end, a great presentation from Apollo Robbins, pickpocket, magician, security consultant, etc. If you want subtitles (in many languages) visit TED.

The "I'm doing something" revolution

I use the metro every single weekday to go to work. About a third of the passengers I see are listening to music from their mp3 devices (or at least pretend to do so). Another third is reading a book/ magazine/ newspaper (or pretend to be reading) or checking/ composing SMSs. From the remaining third, some chat with each other, some talk on the phone and some - few- seem to do nothing. Being a member of that last group, I can't help but wonder: Are idle moments an occasion under extinction? Are they just "out of fashion" or do they really correspond to a change in habits?

The is no doubt that we live in a world full of stimuli. In the typical everyday life, at any given moment of the day, a great number of things are competing, intentionally or unintentionally, for our attention. The kettle whistling sound, the phone ringtone, the flashing lights on ambulances/ police vehicles/ etc., posters and billboards, traffic lights, the music from the media player of the guy next to us, the chat of the couple waiting at the bus stop (if it survives the urban background noise), the notifications that pop up every so often on the lower right side of a windows desktop, the voice of the boss(/wife), etc. Could it be that people have forgotten what "peace and quiet" once used to mean?

To be fair, what I'm describing might be a big-city only epidemic. When one leaves the urban environment and goes to the countryside things, often, feel slower. That always "doing something" state seems to be highly addictive (well, you could also call it "habit", I guess).

I vividly remember, about 2 years ago, going for a meeting to the north, together with colleagues; it had taken us quite a while to get used to the pace of life there. Initially, I felt things where dragging for ages; ordering and having a coffee served was a descent, frustrating, 10-15' case... It took considerable self-discipline and patience to keep my cool ! :-)

It seems to me that we, people, are fully capable of creating entirely artificial environments, based on "I'm doing something" and of "I'm still doing something" individuals. Having said that, our brain is good at establishing a background of stimuli, regardless of density of those stimuli. But, does this come with a cost? And, if yes, is that cost worth it?

The density of stimuli is associated with the rate of development of babies and children. The mental activity throughout one's life has also been associated with people's (mental) health at the later stages of their lives. So does this mean that the busier generations will live a better (or longer) life? Are those generations more efficient thinkers? Or is there a fine line, beyond which the information overload can have a negative impact on people?

In nature, being idle is the "energy-saving mode" of living organisms, thus extremely important for the balance between organisms. But since "energy" may not be too important in some parts of the western world, I wonder, do brief idle periods carry any positive content or not? Has "doing nothing" (in the awake state), perhaps, the potential to help creative thinking and creativity, to allow people to mentally explore other alternatives or to come up with fresh ideas? Could it have any impact to the way that people interact with each other?

Too many questions for which, really, I don't know the answer.... The only thing I can say is, simply, that from time to time I do enjoy doing nothing for a while :-)

(Photo: "Autumn at Idle Creek", by J. Heffner,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/civisi/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)