SKB made a good point on his blog the other day. It was about trouble following the A-List bloggers. He stated that it seems some folks blogged away and only a select group could follow any of it. I say it has more to do with a sign of the times.

The sign of the times being that we net-savvy types need to become more adept at our three-dimensional reading skills. Back when people read books, you had two fundamental directions: Left to right and front to back. Now, a great deal of folks (ahem, me) does most of their reading online. The result is an added dimension, the infamous hyperlink. See, by hyperlinking something, the writer adds another place for you to go with respect to reading what they’re am trying to say. These links are usually facts, sometimes humor, or stuff that only serves to waste your time.

The process of 3D reading does not come easy to some. My dad for instance is not the most computer savvy guy on Earth and I have regretted on many occasion giving him my old computer. He’s come a long way and the phone calls to SayUncle’s tech support have dwindled. He double clicks everything and is often visibly confused by his computer. So, in order to become effective at this 3D reading, one must have a few basic skills and a smidgeon of technical knowledge. The skill sets include knowing when to not bother clicking on a link and when to click on a link. Kind of like wading through the New York Times, the reader must decipher what is crap and what is actually relevant. In SKB’s sample paragraph alone, one would have to read 13 pages to fully read the entire thing. Now, did I click on all the links? No. But I understood the point he was making. The technical skills are easy to master, such as right click to open in a new window. I’m sure I’m not the only person suffering from information overload these days, but I do it to myself and how could I not?

Posted in uncategorized on September 6th, 2002 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |