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Online Reading Patterns
Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 10:12 AM by Jason Barker
Editor & Publisher - a journal covering the newspaper industry - published an article about a significant study by the Poynter Institute: online readers finish news stories more often than print readers. According to the study, online readers read an average of 77% of the story, compared to 62% in broadsheets and 57% in tabloids. There is a significant difference, however, in the depth of reading between users of the two media:
The research also found that 75% of print readers are methodical in their reading, which means they start reading a page at a particular story and work their way through each story. Just 25% of print readers are scanners, who scan the entire page first, then choose a story to read.
Online, however, about half of readers are methodical, while the other half scan, the report found. The survey also revealed that large headlines and fewer, large photos attracted more eyes than smaller images in print. But online, readers were drawn more to navigation bars and teasers.
This study can be closely linked to research - also by the Poynter Institute - I mentioned here, which found that online readers tend to prefer news briefs to in-depth articles. When the findings from the two studies are linked together, we come to this conclusion: online readers tend to read more of an article than print readers, but they also strongly prefer to read very short articles.
I have written before that, despite current trends toward short publications, we need to provide longer Bible studies and commentaries that do justice to the biblical text. At the same time, there is a need to meet readers at their current level. I therefore have what we might consider to be a blend of materials in my Bible studies. The main commentary remains - by modern standards of publications for youth (and even for many adults) - a relatively long examination of the biblical text. Furthermore, the articles on Orthodoxy and life application - while shorter than the commentary - are usually at least two printed pages long. At the same time, however, instead of writing one or two longer background articles on people and places in the text, I now create short notes which appear in sidebar boxes (you can see this in the notes about Ss. Zacharias and Elizabeth in the study on Luke). And, for those who only want the highlights of the chapter, I provide the "Fast Track" and "Quick Trip" features in the studies that give links to only the biblical text, group study handout, and quiz.
These are attempts to meet the diverse reading patterns and needs of online readers.
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