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On boldface and ludic reading.

I've gotten some use out of these bullet points. In case you were wondering about my newfound love of boldface.

The linked article deals with many aspects of the very interesting topic of how we read on-line... and whether our brains are getting rearranged in the process.

But here's the part that really pulled me in:

Ludic Reading

... Pleasure reading is also known as "ludic reading."... Two fascinating notions:

? When we like a text, we read more slowly.

? When we're really engaged in a text, it's like being in an effortless trance.

Ludic reading can be achieved on the Web, but the environment works against you. Read a nice sentence, get dinged by IM, never return to the story again.

I suppose ludic readers would be the little sloths hiding in the jungle while everyone else is out rampaging around for fresh meat.

I love this idea of ludic reading, but if it's about attaining a state of effortless trance, for me, the web environment is much more effective. In fact, it's dangerously effective! Hours and hours slip away as I click around and read and click some more. I never lose track of time while reading a book.

I feel bad about that. I'd love to enter a trance state and live completely inside of a book for many hours. But I have to force myself to stay engaged and keep going. I'm always thinking of other things and jumping up to read (or do) something else.

But on the web, the whole style of reading already incorporates this jumping around. Distractions are built into the experience.

Now, you might want to say this ludic web reading is self-indulgent and feeding what is some sort of attention deficit disorder of mine, but that is only because you are taking book-reading as the norm. Me, I resist the grip of an author wanting me to stick with his order of things, line after line, page after page. I can't find the pleasure in that. I'm not saying I won't read a book, just that if you want to know what is conducive to ludic reading, I say it's the web.

Full post as published by Althouse on June 16, 2008 (boomark / email).