A recent post  mentioned a Science article that asked if the Internet was good or bad for science.  An article in the New York Times had me mentally revisiting a topic I often considered when the web was young.  Is the Internet good or bad for reading? My perspective back then was that it was really good.  I considered all the activity online, and I saw that many people were not careful with their writing, but I also saw that many people took great care in what they wrote in emails, usenet posts, message boards, and web pages.  I reflected on long debates on message boards that were carefully considered and well written, often with several people taking part.

Now, however, there is so much Internet shorthand in use, and so much more trash talking, and just plain lack of concern about spelling or grammar.  Standardized reading scores are dropping and some are wondering if the Internet shares some of the blame. Browsing on the Net from site to site may contribute to shortening the attention span of students, and bad writing may encourage more of the same.

How to assess reading skill is problemmatic.  There are different levels of reading.  There is the everyday reading that is done to follow instructions, light reading for pleasure, and the slow deep reading of high level literature that is studied in school.  Some argue that the Internet has created a new way of reading, finding information, and assesing it, that is as valid as the traditional way, and that in addition to being tested for traditional reading skill, students should be evaluated for digital literacy.  After all, the world does not go in a straight line, neatly arranged into chapters.  Starting next year, some countries will commence testing for digital literacy.

Perhaps in pondering the question of whether the Internet is good or bad for reading, we should take into account not only strict reading skill, but also the number of readers we have now compared to pre-Internet days.   People do tend to write worse now than before, but there are many students, especially from low income families, spending time reading and writing on the Internet who would otherwise not be spending their  free time in this manner.

Adding another layer to the discussion, physiological differences have been found related to different types of reading.  Reading changes the circuitry of the brain; it is possible that Internet reading wires it in a different way than novel reading.  The big question is if it changes it in a beneficial way.  There are arguments on both sides of the issue.

For much more on this, see Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?