There are several ways that Jones and Hafner mention that reading and writing activities have changed due to digital media. The first is the ability to navigate through a reading through links. While books are meant to be read from cover to cover in order, website articles can be navigated through by jumping from place to place, going step to step, or even linking to a completely different article that is associated with theirs. A good example of all these types of links is Wikipedia. Wikipedia uses a hierarchial link structure in MOST of their articles at the beginning. By clicking on one of these a user can go to the section they want to read, just like a table of contents. Although Wikipedia does not exhibit linear structure, they do use internal linking. Anything that has an article on Wikipedia is usually accessible through associated articles. For example, in the Kris Jenner article I edited in the last project, you can easily access any of her childrens’ articles, her ex-husbands articles, and even people who are not related to her. Jones and Hafner argue that this type of linking makes it harder to read a lengthy article online because users get distracted and click on other links and navigate away from the page.
Another way reading and writing has changed due to digital media is the multitasking factor. In Chapter 6, Jones and Hafner explain that many people today use “partial attention” to complete tasks. I agree with this statement. As I read through the chapters and as I am writing this blog post, I have 3 tabs open on my internet app, my phone beside me, and other homework assignments laying out. Today’s generation has to be the best multitaskers around because it’s what we have always known. This element of FOMO (fear of missing out) makes it harder to focus on one piece. If I had closed my internet tabs and put my phone away, I would have read through the chapters much more quickly. But because I could receive an important email or text at any minute, I paid “partial attention” to all of these things at once. I wrote a report not too long ago about how the internet has changed how we think and read, and I found that many people do not read lengthy books or articles anymore because they can find any information they want and need much more quickly by surfing the internet.
I could go on forever about how reading and writing have changed due to digital media, but the two main aspects I saw were the ability to navigate through a text and also the idea of multitasking. It is purely opinion based on if these are positive or negative changing, but one thing is for sure that the way we read and write is not the same as it was even 20 years ago.
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