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Hey, we don't read anymore! Professor David Nicholas, CIBER

CAR PURCHASE COMPARI

• Talk based on a massive evidence-base of what people actually do in the digital space and not what they say they did or wished they did. The data can be trusted.

• Important because people have problems recalling what they did in the digital space

• Use millions of digital footprints instead.

• Massive activity in the virtual space, which masks the truth of what has happened as we all decamp to the virtual space

• We are told that the brain is rewiring fast as a consequence of the move

• Possibly the end of civilisation as we know it?

• What we seem to have done is given up reading (and all that means) for viewing (and all that means.

Introduction

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In information seeking terms we ‘bounce’

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• Most people view only 1-2 pages from thousands available; 3 is a lot

• Around 40% do not come back – we are promiscuous users• ‘One-shots’ abound (one visit, on page)• Bounce because of:

• search engines (big lists) and links (enjoined to go elsewhere)• massive and changing choice• so much rubbish out there• ‘acceptance of failure’ – result of pragmatism, lack of time &

overload • poor retrieval skills (2.2 words per query and first page up on

Google) • leave memories in cyberspace, which adds to ‘churn’ rate• direct result of end-user checking• multi-tasking

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The horizontal has replaced the vertical

• What we do is ‘skitter’ (moving rapidly along a surface, with frequent light contacts or changes of direction)

• ‘Power browse’, drive-thru titles, headings, links & summaries at a fast rate. Charge for abstracts and give away PDFs!

• Building digital motorways through and between content means movement itself pleasurable…might be something (more) interesting around the corner. Lots of things never connected before

• And then there is multi-tasking – always more pleasurable to do several things at once rather than one thing

• Don’t do ‘long’ anymore (more on this later)

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Welcome to the fast information society

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• As in life, the (information) snack/bite has replaced the three course meal (whole book/article/page)

• Been conditioned by emailing, text messaging, tweeting and PowerPoint to like/produce/want/need fast information above all else

• Same health problems – indigestion, over weight, unfit…

• ‘Fast bag pick-up’ the gold standard [airport analogy]

• Don’t come in the front door; deep dive courtesy of Google

• Web designers & content providers thought we would dwell and knock on the front door. Do you remember site-stickiness?

• Avoid carefully-crafted discovery systems

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Viewing has replaced reading

Culture on the go 16 of 35

No shock then nobody in this environment does much reading or certainly not what is traditionally thought to be reading (reflective or deep reading; the reading of whole documents)

In fact:

• People seem to go online to avoid reading

• Typically, only a few minutes spent on a visit, and 15 minutes is a very long time;

• If it is an article then 3-4 minutes will be spent on it;

• Shorter articles have much bigger chance of being viewed;

• If article long, summary will be read or will be downloaded and squirreled away for another day (when it will not be read!). ‘Digital osmosis’.

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Taking it to a new level: the Google Generation

• Where we came in, worries about what young (born digital) were up to, carrying that into adulthood. So how do they behave:

Have greatest appetite for fast information and skittering

Quickest searchers, spend least amount of time on a visit – fraction of the time spent by adults.

But least confident about their answers. Lack of confidence explained by their behaviour – first one up, view fewer pages and domains, do fewer searches, don’t evaluate. First past the post approach endemic

Queries much closer textually to questions posed, making them, not just fast food generation, but also the `cut and paste’ generation.

Young fast forwarded from a world where focus was on knowing one big thing to a world where you know many things, but not very well. Web foxes!

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Taking it to a new level: smartphones (and tablets)

• Taking ‘lite’ information seeking and reading behaviour to a new level: faster, more truncated/abbreviated, less appraised etc.

• Away from the office, away from the desk; information on the go and in the social space (considered reading again is being challenged)

• Ask a young person about the library and they will point to their phone. Ironically they are not allowed to use them in libraries!

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Big issues and reflections

• Maybe McLuhan’s universe of linear exposition, quiet contemplation, disciplined reading and study was an ideal which we all bought into and developed services around. But…

• Perhaps always wanted to skitter and power browse and did so when we could. Difference now is that opportunities for skittering (and distraction) legion and this creates more skittering; and pace not letting-up (twitter)

• In fact the brain gets endorphin rush for finding information. So digital skittering inevitably enjoyable but chips away at capacity to concentrate, contemplate & evaluate. Digital makes us stupid!

• Neurologists say digital behaviour changing connections in brain – introducing new ones/dispensing with old ones; young brains rewire quickly and rewiring for speed not contemplation

• Also, as part of the rewiring the it of the brain that contains our memory is shrinking/losing capacity. Don’t bother to remember; web is our memory.

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Questions for you and the one-liner

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• Should we worry about this?

• Does it constitute a dumbing down?

• If so can we ameliorate this form of behaviour and, if so, who and how?

• From a content providers perspective how best to profit from of behaviour?

• The digital transition has altered the way we behave and we are still to wake up to how fundamental that change is.

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