"Lazy Eyes" By Michael Agger

When it comes to the topic of technology, numerous people would agree that computers have made a lot of lives much easier. Many people take comfort in knowing that everything they need to know is right there at their finger tips. In today’s society it is preferred to go online to find out information about a topic rather than reading it on paper. But with all the reading that takes place online has it altered how people read today?

In the recent work by Michael Agger he talks about how people read information online. It seems that in order to get the attention of online readers it needs to be short, bold and straight to the point. Most people today do not have time to read lengthy articles and are often put off by having to read in depth. To capture the attention of the online reader, information has to be presented in a way that the viewer of the article, image or text should not feel overwhelmed by how much they have to read or view. Many authors that write online often leave big spacing between paragraphs so that it does not look so time consuming. Agger refers to this as “white space.” As a result of putting spacing between paragraphs the observer of the online piece feels that they are not reading as much as they would normally when reading on paper. In Agger’s article called “Lazy Eyes How we read online” he uses easy to read print and separates his editorial into short paragraphs. He makes jokes throughout his article about how he may have lost the concentration of some readers because a few paragraphs are too long or that the audience may have been distracted by other websites. When a person goes online they usually want to find the answers to their questions as quickly as possible, causing a lot of skimming over information. Agger states “We move on if there doesn’t seem to be any good food around” (1). Agger’s point is that if the reader does not find what they are looking for straight away they tend to jump from link to link until they think they have found the answer. With all the links and other websites readers get referred to online it is hard to stay in one place especially when adding social networking sites to the mix.

Although it would seem that reading online would be a quicker process compared reading on paper, studies have show differently. Online reading is 25 percent slower than reading on paper as discovered by Jakob Nielsen. Aggers refers to Nielsen several times throughout his article. Due to the constant distractions that a reader will endure while searching for information online it makes the act of reading much slower. Studies show that more reading takes place on paper because of fewer distractions. Experts suggest ways online readers can make the experience of reading more comfortable. It is important to choose a default font, rest your eyes every 10 minutes, get a good monitor, skip long lines of text that make you tired and stay away from social networking sites. Another way of making reading online more comfortable is that many writers such as Agger have had to adapt their style of writing. Agger himself writes “One idea per paragraph, half the word count of conventional writing! Ouch, other stuff along these lines” (2). Basically what Agger is saying is that if he wants to capture the attention of the online reader he must limit what he would normally write and make it as short as possible while still getting the main points across, which is a skill that many experts such as Nielsen would expect a good writer to be able to do.

Agger goes on to talk about “Lubic reading” and how when a person is enjoying a text they read more slowly whereas if a reader is not fully engaged in a text it becomes a chore. “Lubic reading” can take place online, but with the constant distractions often people do not finish what they were reading. It is expected that more online reading will take place in the future as computers seem to be the way forward, but Agger claims that it will not replace the peaceful and uninterrupted process that readers experience when they read on paper.