Analyzing a Blog
Read
about Reading, Liam Tsukijima, January 20, 2018
The
intended audience seems to range from young adults of 18, to those in their mid
to late 30’s. His writing style and choice of words require the reader to be
well educated which would likely mean a well-paying job as well. The options suggested
to encourage reading also resemble practices used with children, which many adults
would be familiar with.
He
introduces the blog by showing a picture of a profile with information and
listing off bullet points of what a kind of message this would send. These are
followed by several short paragraphs further elaborating on his intended
message. This doesn’t draw me in because there’s no strong opening line or
paragraph. All that is being shown is a few short points.
Atwood
is attempting to prove that article should be fully read and appreciated instead
of being quickly commented on and forgotten.
He
uses the data from the Ars Technica Banana experiment that shows that an
average 60% of viewers rush to comment on an article before reading it fully.
Data from the Slate experiment is also used showing that small number of people
don’t fully read through articles.
His
proposed solutions include removing interruptions from reading, measuring read
times and displaying them to the reader, give rewards for reading a certain
amount of an article, and update articles in real time to give a more engaging experience.
While
Atwood brings up a lot of good ideas, his article feels very disjointed to me.
He goes from one topic to the next and lists off so many ideas and points that
it becomes hard to focus on what he’s really trying to get across. He also
doesn’t show much evidence to back up his claims that reading an article in its
entirety will lead to a better reading experience.
I can definitely see your point of view. Not being in the techie world myself I found the post a difficult read as the subject matter holds very little interest to me, and I would have liked a bit more flair. Perhaps it is because I am female but I would have appreciated more visually appealing aesthetics and found the stark white and subdued colours a hard place to linger in for too long. I did think he managed to avoid too much industry jargon and academia so as not to alienate readers or bore them. I also agreed with his overall point, that people do spend too much time commenting as opposed to listening. I have seen people who leave comments that don't even align with the post because they simply responded to the headline, never mind read the article. I'm not sure however that I would like to see his solutions implemented. I personally get annoyed when I have to do something in order to comment and unless I feel very passionate or am very compelled to do it, I will just move on rather than add my two cents.
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