by Mark Dawson

Created on: June 19, 2008   Last Updated: August 02, 2011

I recently read an article in the Atlantic magazine entitled "Is Google making us stoopid?" Essentially, the article talks about how reading on the internet has changed our general reading habits with books and other printed resources. I related to the article. It stated that because of all the internet surfing, we are losing our ability and endurance to read and concentrate on lengthy passages in books and magazines. The author stated that he used to be a veracious reader, delving into a book for hours upon hours without exhaustion. Now, after years of blogging, and internet surfing, he rarely read books anymore, and when he does, he couldn't read no more than two or three pages without his mind wandering to something else, or his eyes falling heavy, or his body getting anxious. I said, "Hey, that has happened to me!" and he claimed that all his friends were also experiencing this.

But what I have come to learn was something very interesting. I did my own personal experiment. The experiment involved reading a book for a length of time, and reading something on the net for a length of time, and comparing how my eyes and body responded.

I did two. I read the book first, then read the net. Then, the next day, I read the net, then read the book. In both trials, the results were literally the same and I was able to determine the one factor, at least in my opinion, that caused it.

I was determined to read a novel for exactly four hours straight. I sat in my den and began reading a great mystery I read before. Years ago, I read it in one sitting. However, as I was reading, I dozed off a number of four times. My mind began wandering to something I did the other day, and often I had to re-read paragraphs because I was getting feelings of vertigo.

After the four hours, I went directly to my computer to read a site that has short stories. I read a number of stories for four hours straight, and I didn't doze off once.

I did the second trial backwards, and the results were pretty much the same. Reading the book caused me to wander, re-read and doze. Reading the net was no problem.

I must mention my posture during both times. During both trial, I sat up and didn't slouch. The chair in the den and the computer room was the same, a soft recliner. So what I was sitting in was not a factor.

My conclusion? Why was I able to read for hours on the net, and struggle through the book? Are my neurological wires being altered by the net as the Atlantic article claimed? The answer

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