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Sloan the DEV Moderator for CodeNewbie

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Challenges to Reading in the Digital Age?

What challenges do you think digital media poses to our reading habits and cognitive processes?

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Top comments (3)

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kurealnum profile image
Oscar

Digital media (specifically social media) certainly poses a major challenge, that being overstimulation. Why sit down and read a book when you could instead scroll through 20 different videos in 2 minutes? Reading a book is considered boring for most people, because digital media is just so much more entertaining.

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michaeltharrington profile image
Michael Tharrington

I know it's nothing new but TV and video have definitely made me lazy about consuming media and so have hurt my reading habits, because I expect to be able to consume whatever media I'm into quickly and without much fuss... and well, reading is hard.

I think my attention span has taken a hit when it comes to reading... I can easily get distracted. Sometimes I'll be looking at the words on a page but thinking something else entirely... I'll get 3 pages further from where I was, but even though my eyes have scanned each individual word, my mind has not absorbed any of the content. Sometimes I blame this on being a TV guy, because I haven't had enough practice with books to stay focused. But admittedly, it happens with movies and shows too. I'm off in space somewhere and when I come back to reality I realize I have no idea what's going on haha.

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maxfindel profile image
Max F. Findel

I feel so many forces fighting everyday for my attention that I can't seem to find the time to just sit and read for a while.