Chris Anderson on the social filtering of news and media

PRESS RELEASE
FROM: Center for the Future of the Screen
DIRECTOR: Danny Bloom
WEBSITE: http://zippy1300.blogspot.com
OFFICE: TAIPEI, TAIWAN
Do we need a new word for the new-fangled kind of “reading” we do on screens?
TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Are you reading this press release — or — are you
screening this? How you answer
this question will determine whether you get to the bottom of this
news release.
Alex Beam, writing in the Boston Globe on June 19, fired the first
volley in this now-national
discussion. “Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we
read on the
printed page?” Beam asked rhetorically. His column was headlined by a
savvy Globe copyeditor: “I screen, you screen, we all screen.”
The answer to Beam’s question is, of course, yes. From most of the
research that has come in so
far from academics in
North America and Europe, the answer is clear, although not everyone’s
in agreement with what it all means.
Yes, screening has multiple meanings. We screen movies, we screen job
candidates, we screen
patients for medical problems, we do a lot of “screening” in this
world of ours. And now, you will be hearing a lot about a new kind of
“screening” — so-called reading on plastic, pixelated screens.
Dr. Anne Mangen at the
University of Stavanger in Norway tells us what she thinks about the word
“screening” for reading on a screen: “My first
impression is that the term ‘screening’ is adequate in some
respects, but not in others. It’s adequate to the extent that it
points to certain differences in the reading mode which has to do with
the display nature, the central bias of a screen compared to a page of
print text (our gaze is naturally oriented towards the center), and
the image-like character of modalities (we tend to read a screen
spatially, in contrast to the page which we linearly).”
Dr Mangen, in a published academic paper published in Britain last
December, listed a few reasons that reading on paper
and reading on a screen are two very different animals.
* Reading on a screen is not as rewarding — or effective — as
reading printed words on paper.
* The process of reading on a screen involves so much physical
manipulation of the
computer that it interferes with our ability to focus on and
appreciate what we’re reading.
* Online text moves up and down the
screen and lacks physical dimension, robbing us of a feeling of
completeness.
* The visual happenings on a compter screen and our physical interaction
with the entire device and its set ip can be distracting. All of these things
tax human cognition and concentration in a way that a book or
newspaper or magazine does not.
* The experience of reading a book or a newspaper or a magazine is
both a story experience and a tactile one.
The jury’s still out on just how different reading on paper is
from reading on a screen, but the public discussions in the blogsphere
are getting interesting — and heated. But more and more, top experts
in the computer and Internet fields, as well as typeface designers and
readability gurus, are in agreement that we need a new word
for reading on screens, and that the word should be “screening.” For
now. A completely new word might come down the information highway in
the future and take the place of screening. But for now, you screen, I
screen, we all screen.
We asked Kevin Kelly, the well-respected maverick of Wired magazine,
what he felt about this
new word for reading on screens, he told us by email in one short sentence: “I
would be happy to see screening become a verb (for this).”
Mim Harrison, a book editor in Florida with Levenger Press, said: “I find the
distinction between reading and screening to be intriguing, and it
certainly gives us all pause to consider just what it is we’re doing
with our eyeballs these days.”
“Screening, of course, is not a new term,” a top expert in predicting
the future told us in a recent email, but this might just be the
time that it catches on in the way you suggest. Screening is a clever
and useful term capturing the fact that the
experience of reading on a screen is fundamentally different from reading
on paper. Not a priori worse or better; just different.”
And then he added this important note: “It is the right word for the
moment in terms of drawing people’s attention to the vast literary
shift about to wash over us.”
When we asked technology reporter John Markoff at the New York Times
about this idea, he replied in a one-word email note: “Hmmmmmmm.”
We asked David Pogue at the New York Times the same question, and he
said: “Very interesting.”

Ross
i agree, well said. Can you answer these questions then? and maybe blog on it. many people are now answering the questions, see my blog, ALL points of view.
1. Since reading on paper is very different from reading on screens,
do you think that at some point it might be useful , maybe, to coin a new word in English
for “reading on screens”, ……yes or no?
2. If yes , …..can you suggest any possible words for this new word: maybe
scanning? screen-reading? screening? any other words you can think of
that might work well here, words or terms?
3. A futurist inthe USA , a very well known person, tells me:
“Screening” is not a new term, but this might just be the time that it
catches on, given the imminent arrival of Apple’s iPad, and other
devices. The last time I heard it — screening — in this way — was
back in the late 1990s when the RocketBook and Softbook made their
debut, but the term didn’t do any better than the products did.”
do you agree with him that THIS might be the time SCREENING catches
on? Yes or no or comments?
4. This furturist told me “This time around, screening is a clever and
useful term capturing the fact
that the experience reading on a screen is fundamentally different
from reading on paper. Not a priori worse or better; just different.”
Do you agree with him here, yes or no or comments?
5. This futurist also told me …”So definitley SCREENING is the right
word for the moment in terms of drawing
people’s attention to the vast literary shift about to wash over
us….Do you agree that we are now witnessing a vast literary shift
about to wash over us? YES NO MAYBE? COMMENTS?
6. Is there any research yet that speaks about the way that different
parts of the brain light up when people read on paper compared to when
they read on a screen? Has anyone studied it this way yet? Can it be
studied this way? Do you think it is possible that different parts of
the brain light up when we read on paper vs reading on screens? Might
PHD people do research on this in the future.? how could one conduct
such research? with MRI machines? brain scans?
7. Does reading on screens hamper or hinder our critical analysis
skills of what we are reading?
8. If in the future most reading is done on screens, from computers to
iPhones to Kindles to even textbooks on screens, could this hurt the
critical thinking skills of young people to think, analyze and asess
information?
9. Do you think people will be reading on paper surfaces anymore in
the year 2050? in the year 2099?
10. Are you willing or ready to say goodbye to MR PAPER, and greet
the SCREEN AGE with a complete open-minded welcome?