The other day I noticed that SportsIllustrated.com has an awesome feature on all of their stories: a bulleted list of “story highlights” in the upper-right hand corner of the page.
SI.com is owned by CNN, so CNN also has the same “story highlights”. I’m actually surprised that more news sites don’t have this feature. I normally scan 95% of the articles I click on just to pick up the key points that they have so neatly summarized for me up on top. For most stories, that’s all I want. Brilliant!
This has become an internet phenomenon and some argue it can lead to detrimental habits. I have mixed feelings about “cliff notes,” in one hand I do like to get the largest volume of information in the shortest amount of time, in the other hand I do miss the details, and subtle nuances of reading articles. I even find myself just skimming articles and text on line, catch a few sentences on each paragraph and only continue if it seems very interesting. I can see good and bad in this, in the long run, I suspect it will lead to a further regression of people reading, and more importantly paying attention. Which in itself is not a big deal, however, I can easily see the media using this tactic to manipulate information more so then they already do and we would be no wiser.
Tim -
You definitely bring up a great point. I find myself doing the same thing you do. I have to consciously tell myself to switch from “skim mode” to “real reading mode” when I see something I really want to read. For me, it’s also a computer thing. If it’s in print (either a magazine or book) I’m much better at reading every word than I am when viewing something on the screen.
Adam