“Power browsing” — a new way of reading the web
John Naughton writes about a study by British Library and researchers at University College London that postulates that young people have adopted new forms of reading on the web.
[tease]
The findings describe ‘a new form of information-seeking behaviour’ characterised as being ‘horizontal, bouncing, checking and viewing in nature.
Users are promiscuous, diverse and volatile.’ ‘Horizontal’ information-seeking means ‘a form of skimming activity, where people view just one or two pages from an academic site then “bounce” out, perhaps never to return.’
The average times users spend on e-book and e-journal sites are very short: typically four and eight minutes respectively.
[via Mark Evans]