Or What Happens When You’re Reading Online

If you’re a Baby Boomer, part of the largest generation ever to inhabit the earth at one time, you can easily remember a time before the internet. You remember when “the media” included just newspapers and the three main television networks. You remember when a long-distance phone call meant an extra charge. You remember when all the reading you did was from a paper page printed in ink.

As a Boomer, you still may consider a smart phone a newfangled device, cool as it is. Touch screens still feel a little like science fiction. Yet most people are reading online these days. While many Boomers still get the daily paper delivered, that’s becoming a quaint custom instead of a necessity, sort of like it was to get milk delivered in days past.

A New Way of Reading

When words are on a page, and that page is bound either into a physical book or as part of a physical newspaper, your brain processes it as part of the whole. If you’ve read any literature, as most Boomers have, you know the challenges of Kafka or Dostoyevsky. Long-winded sentences, full-page paragraphs, chapters without end. They were wonderfully rewarding and terribly complex.

When you read online, however, your brain sees only the words on the screen. You tend to rush through a page to find what you’re seeking — the answer to a question or the pertinent point. Few read great literature on an electronic device, unless the device is specifically branded as a “reader.” As a result, reading online actually changes the brain chemistry.

The Consequences of Reading Online

A new book from Maryann Wolf, as summarized by Angela Chen, explains how reading everything online programs your brain to expect immediate payoffs and easy access. You can lose patience for reading in-depth. Try reading a 19th-Century classic after spending eight hours doing online research or even six hours on Facebook. You’ll discover how difficult it seems.

Is it changing the way we absorb information? Will it affect how we relate to each other as human beings? These are questions beyond the scope of this blog post and this writer. They are, however, interesting questions to ponder.

Writing for Reading Online

The writers and editors at Ray Access understand the differences between reading online and reading offline. We employ techniques that help people read online — that’s one of the things we do that sets us apart from our competition. Our tips to write for online readers include:

• Write short, crisp sentences. You can’t write run-on sentences and expect readers to keep up. Keep sentences short, and let ideas flow more easily, one to the next.
• Limit your vocabulary. In stories and novels, you can let your imagination soar. It’s important to find the exact right word, and if your readers don’t know what it means, you can assume they’ll look it up. Not true with online reading. Make everything understood the first time through, or your readers are liable to click away to another website.
• Keep paragraphs short. A long paragraph is a big block of text on the digital screen. No matter how wonderfully written it may be, it looks daunting on a web page. And it does nothing to help readers find what they’re looking for. By keeping your paragraphs short, you provide white space that helps your readers’ eyes, too.
• Place images to forward your ideas. Like short paragraphs, images — photographs, charts, infographics, whatever — break up the text and provide variety on the page. And if the image adds to the meaning of your content, so much the better.
• Create short sections. Short sections of two to three paragraphs, broken up by bolded headings, increase white space. Formatting your page this way also aids readability and scanning. If online readers tend to scan, you make it easier for them to do that. Short sentences, short paragraphs and short sections introduced by illustrative headings all play important roles.
• Use a large font, spaced appropriately. Baby Boomers, no matter how good their eyesight, appreciate a larger font size, generous kerning and significant leading.

These tips aid reading online for anyone, but especially if any part of your audience includes Baby Boomers. And Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are sure to comprise at least some of you target audience. If they don’t — they should. They’re the ones with the money today!

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.