Thanks in part to efficient search engines such as Google, on-line reading has become for many the primary way that people read. This talk will discuss how a wide range of research in web usability, psychology, education, and communication theory provides corroborating evidence that on-line reading is transforming cognition, learning, and the very nature of knowledge in some disturbing ways.

1. What s
What’s
wrong
with
online
li
reading?
May 2010

6. AND

7. Young “digital natives”
possess sophisticated
IT based
IT-based skills …
… and education needs
to change to meet them
them.

8. “It’s not what you know that
It s
really counts; it’s how y
y ; you
navigate in the digital world,
and what you do with the
information you discover”
y
“Net Geners, immersed in digital
technology, are keen to try new things,
often at high speed. They want school to
be fun and interesting.”
Don Tapscott, grown up digital (McGraw Hill, 2009), p. 135

9. New reading?

10. “Books are machines for
transmitting authority”…
authority
… while h
hil hypertext “ b i l
t t “obviously
creates empowered readers”
readers
G.P. Landlow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (John Hopkins Press, 1997)

11. Hypertext encourages “metacognitive
yp g g
awareness that recognizes alternate forms
of organization for information” …
g
and “offers the opportunity to extend
literacy skills – such as associative logic,
visual rhetoric and interactivity.”
M. Sorapure et al, “Web literacy: Challenges and opportunities for research in a new medium,” Computers and Composition 15 (1998)
Burbles and Callister, “Knowledge at the cross‐roads: Some alternative futures of hypertext learning environments, Education Theory 46 (1996)

12. However
However

13. These claims “h
Th l i “have
been subjected to little
critical scrutiny, are
scrutiny
under theorized, and
lack a sound empirical
p
basis.”
Sue Bennett et al, “The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence,” British Journal of Educational Technology 39 (2007)

15. Discuss how recent research in web
usability, psychology, physiology, cognitive
science,
science political science media studies
science, studies,
and education provides a great deal of
corroborating evidence that
online reading is not
nearly as g
y good as it seems

16. “Reading is the key intellectual and
g y
cultural foundation of literate
societies,
societies and the fundamental
activity of scholars …
…yet we hhave li l k
little knowledge
l d
of how the way we experience
information is modified in new
media environments.”
Claire Warwick et al, “Codex Redux: Books and New Knowledge Environments,” Books Online ‘08 (October 2008)

17. In fact, the evidence convinces me
that is d
th t it i downright
i ht
dangerous
for our cognitive powers
and
for the future of democratic society
society.

18. It all began
with my
father …
… and his Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer s

19. about f g tti g,
b t forgetting
abo t concentrating,
about
about sustained reading
b t

20. Then I read something
that reduced my
anxiety…

22. “I now have almost
totally lost the ability
to read and absorb a
longish article on the
g
web or in print.”
p
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google making Us Stoopid,” The Atlantic (July/August 2008)

23. According to survey data:
“an overwhelming majority of
an
academics (64 per cent)
[claim they] are not reading
as deeply and reflectively as
they used to.”
y
Heather Menzies and Janice Newson, “No Time to Think?” Academic Matters (Winter 2006)

24. “Instead the majority
Instead,
indicated, they are skimming
sources for useful bits of
information.
information ”
Heather Menzies and Janice Newson, “No Time to Think?” Academic Matters (Winter 2006)

25. What b t
Wh t about

26. Five Things
Wrong
with online
reading
di

27. Comprehension
p

28. Reading
studies

29. “young people scan online pages very
rapidly ( y especially) and click
p y (boys p y)
extensively on hyperlinks – rather than
reading sequentially … they tend to
move rapidly from page to page,
spending little time reading or
digesting information.”
I. Rowlands and D. Nicholas, Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future (2008)

30. “our empirical study seems to indicate
… that hypertext degrades the q
yp g quality
y
of reader’s engagement during
reading.
reading ”
David S. Miall and Teresa Dobson, “Reading hypertext and the experience of literature,” Journal of Digital Information 2 (2001)

31. “hypertext presentation resulted in a
lower comprehension p
p performance.”
Rouet et al, “Effects of online reading on popular science comprehension,” Science Communication 25 (2) 2003.

32. Readers with low domain knowledge
comprehend significantly better with
p g y
highly coherent texts (books).
Readers with high domain knowledge
comprehend significantly better with
low coherent texts (i.e., hypertext).
L. Salmeron et al, “Reading Strategies and Hypertext Comprehension,” Discourse Processess 40 (2005)

33. “the net total effect of the web is
actually to reduce learning compared
y g p
to print presentation.”
Eveland and Dunwoody, “An investigation of elaboration and selective scanning as mediators of learning from the web versus print,” Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media 46 (1) 2002.

34. In a longitudinal study comparing digital literacy
in 2002 and 2009 across generations:
Improvements in technical li
I i h i l literacy amongst the older cohorts
h ld h
Big decreases in tasks requiring creative and critical thinking
amongst younger cohorts
“For the
“F th more critical and creative skills …
iti l d ti kill
experience and exposure to [online]
information seem t h
i f ti to have a negative effect
ti ff t
on the user’s performance.”
Eshet‐Alkalai, “Changes over time in Digital Literacy,” CyberPsychology & Behavior 12 (6) 2009

35. Both
user control theory
and
structural isomorphism theory
(
(communication/learning theories)
g )
predicted that
reading comprehension
g p
would be improved
online in comparison to p
p print.
Eveland and Dunwoody, “User Control and Structural Isomorphism or Disorientation and Cognitive Load,” Communication Research 28 (1) 2001.

36. didn’t thi happen?
did ’t this h ?

37. Scanning
Scanning

38. Usability experts have observed
that over past 5-6 years
the nature of web usage
has dramatically changed.

39. Most web usage has
switched from Surfing to
Information Foraging
39

40. Information f
I f i foragers
are seeking very specific prey

41. Information foragers
rely on search engines
to get to the “information patch
information patch”
Because search engines make it easy to f d patches,
h k find h
foragers will spend little time looking for prey.

42. “learning to use the Internet is a
process of transitioning from
casual ‘looking’ to more focused
searching for an answer to a
‘specific question’.”
Howard + Massanari, “Learning to Search and Searching to Learn”, Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication (2007)

43. “the fact that online reading
comprehension always begins with
a question or problem may be an
important source of the
differences between online and
offline reading.”
ffli di ”
Leu et al, “What is new about the new literacies of online reading comprehension”, Secondary School Literacy: What Research Reveals for
Classroom Practice (2007)

44. is this important?

45. Because…
Because
…of the velocity of web usage
of usage.

46. long do you spend viewing
your average web page?

47. 25% of all web pages
are displayed for less than
p y
four seconds!
Weinreich et al, “Off the Beaten Tracks: Exploring Three Aspects of Web Navigation”, IW3C2 2006

48. 52% of all visits
are shorter than
ten seconds!
Only about 11% are visited for
more than 2 minutes.
Weinreich et al, “Off the Beaten Tracks: Exploring Three Aspects of Web Navigation”, IW3C2 2006

49. Weinreich et al, “Off the Beaten Tracks: Exploring Three Aspects of Web Navigation”, IW3C2 2006

50. “users most often spent
p
approximately 10 seconds
viewing those documents
that they eventually
h h ll
identified as relevant and
also those that they
eventually did not mark as
relevant.”
Diane Kelly and Nicholas J. Belkin, “Reading Time, Scrolling and Interaction: Exploring Implicit Sources for User Preferences for Relevance
Feedback”, Proceedings of the 24th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval (2001)

51. Are
academics
any
different?

53. In a very interesting study comparing the
y g y p g
time spent reading a paper-based academic
article and the on-line equivalent, the
researchers f
h found that
d h
“a
“ very l large proportion
i
of [online] full-text views
full text
were extremely brief and
possibly cursory.”
David Nicholas et al, “Viewing and reading behavior in a virtual environment”, ASLIB Proceedings: New Information Perspectives 60 (2008)

54. Average reading times for 10+ page p
g g p g printed
academic paper varied between 22 to 45
minutes based on the discipline.
Average reading times for on-line version
averaged about 74 seconds.
Yet academics reported that they spent
between 5-15 minutes reading the online
version (even though they didn’t).
David Nicholas et al, “Viewing and reading behavior in a virtual environment”, ASLIB Proceedings: New Information Perspectives 60 (2008)

55. Average for academics: 74 seconds
g
Average for students: 100 seconds
Average for life science academics: 112 s
Average for business academics: 60 s
Average for computer science academics: 55 s
Research-university faculty spent longer than
teaching university
teaching-university faculty.
David Nicholas et al, “Viewing and reading behavior in a virtual environment”, ASLIB Proceedings: New Information Perspectives 60 (2008)

56. is this happening?

57. SCANNING

58. The vast majority of
j y
web pages are scanned
and not read
d t d
by
b most users
t

59. The focus on usability this decade
has succeeded in achieving
broad acceptance of conventions
in the design of web sites

60. Eye-tracking stud es
ye t ac g studies

61. The Poynter Institute, Poynter EyeTrack07: A study of print and online news reading (2007)

62. The Poynter Institute, Poynter EyeTrack07: A study of print and online news reading (2007)

63. Word Skipping: Implications
Eye movements in reading are characterized by
short periods of steadiness (fixations) followed by
fast movements (saccades). Saccades are needed
to bring new information into the centre of the
visual field where acuity is best; fixations are
required to recognized words. … Some words are
q g
fixated more than once, some are initially not
fixated but immediately afterwards regressed to,
and some are not fixated at all.
Marc Brysbaert and Francoise Vitu, “Word Skipping: Implications for Theories of Eye Movement Control in Reading,” Eye Guidance in Reading and
Scene Perception (Elsevier Science, 1998)

64. Zambarbieri et al, "Eye Tracking Analysis in Reading Online Newspapers," Journal of Eye Movement Research 2(4) 2008.

65. Nielsen Group, “F‐Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content,” http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html (April 17, 2006)

66. Notice the large mass of text not read,
(even when subjects being tested f “ di g”)
( h bj t b i g t t d for “reading”)
Shrestha, “Eye Movement Analysis of Text-Based Web Page Layouts,” Usability News 2009 (11)

67. Lorigo et al, “Eye Tracking and Online Search: Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead,” Journal
of the American Society for Information Science and technology (2008)

68. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070312ruel/

69. “F is for fast
“ i f f .
That s
That's how users read your
precious content. In a few
seconds,
seconds their eyes move at
amazing speeds across your
website s
website’s words in a pattern
that's very different from what
you learned in school ”
school.
Nielsen Group, “F‐Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content,” http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html (April 17, 2006)

70. Notice
Red areas show
only first two
words in headlines
are
scanned
Nielsen Group, “Email Newsletters: Surviving Inbox Congestion,” http://www.useit.com/alertbox/newsletters.html (June 12, 2006)

71. More recent research shows
Use s ead only the st
Users read o ly t e first
eleven characters
of an online h dli
f li headline
(forget about the body text).
More recent research shows …
12345678901
Nielsen Group, “First 2 Words: A Signal for the Scanning Eye,” http://www.useit.com/alertbox/nanocontent.html (April 6, 2009)

72. “The human brain
is in the early
stages of reading,
…

73. … but it has a long evolutionary past in
adapting cognitive t it f swift
d ti iti traits for ift
processing and responses to audiovisual
cues.”
”
Grabe et al, “Informing Citizens: How people with Different Levels of Education process Television, Newspaper, and Web News,” Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media 53 (1) 2009.

74. Reading is unnatural
unnatural,
but scanning is not.
Humans are hard-wired
to excel at fast scanning

76. Eye-tracking studies
y g
have shown that
scanning is also an
g
important part of
newspaper reading.
p p g

77. 1991, 1994
“a mere 25% of all [newspaper] articles
are seen, and only 12% are read deeper
than half their length.
length.”
Garcia and Stark, Eyes on the News (Poytner Institute, 1991)

78. 1960 1980
1995 2009

80. Print newspapers
55%
Eye fixations = reading
Online newspapers
44%
Eye fixations = reading
Holmqvist et al, “Reading or scanning? A study of newspaper and net reading,” The Mind’s Eye: Cognitive and Applied Aspects of Eye Movement
Research (2003)

81. “The correlation between
The
proportion of reading and
time spent on
[an online news] page
is only 0.25”
y
Holmqvist et al, “Reading or scanning? A study of newspaper and net reading,” The Mind’s Eye: Cognitive and Applied Aspects of Eye Movement
Research (2003)

82. “Our results showed that in
Our
fact net paper readers
scan more and read less
than newspaper readers ”
readers.
Holsana, “Cognition, multimodal interaction and new media,” Philosophical papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz (2007)

83. Selectivity

84. Selectivity f
S l ti it refers to users
t
c oos g select g
choosing/selecting
what they read/view.

85. What could be wrong with
the freedom to choose …
your
o r
reading
material?

86. Excessive selectivity is
y
associated with a variety
of negative outcomes:

87. Decreased news awareness
D d
Decreased political knowledge
and participation
Decreased diversity of opinion
y p
and higher political polarization

88. “Online readers of the Times appear to
pp
have read fewer national,
international, and p
, political news stories
[than readers of print version]
and were less likely to recognize and
y g
recall events that occurred during the
exposure p
p period.”
Tewksbury and Althus, “Differences in knowledge acquisition among readers of the paper and online versions of national newspapers,”
Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 31 (2006)

89. “preference-based gaps [i.e., selectivity]…
p g p [ , y]
are self-imposed as many people
abandon the news for entertainment
simply because they like it better.
Inequality in political knowledge and
turnout increases as a result of
voluntary, not circumstantial,
consumption decisions.”
Prior, “News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout,” American Journal of Political
Science 49 (3) July 2005

90. “the net paper readers read stories
p p
thematically close to their own specific
p
profession or interests. …
The newspaper readers in our study …
were much less selective. They read
(parts) of text on all the different
pages … including a wide variety of
genres and topics.”
Holmqvist et al, “Reading or scanning? A study of newspaper and net reading,” The Mind’s Eye: Cognitive and Applied Aspects of Eye Movement
Research (2003)

91. “We found that there was a significant
difference in the extent of selective
diff i th t t f l ti
scanning .. with the least scanning in the
print condition … and significantly more
i t diti d i ifi tl
scanning … in the web conditions.”
Thus, while the quantity of information on
the web should increase learning it in fact
“decreases learning through increased
selective scanning compared to traditional
print.”
Eveland and Dunwoody, “An investigation of elaboration and selective scanning as mediators of learning from the web versus print,” Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media 46 (1) 2002.
Eveland and Dunwoody, “User Control and Structural Isomorphism or Disorientation and Cognitive Load,” Communication Research 28 (1) 2001.

92. “Political talk that centers on reinforcing a
g
shared viewpoint does little to encourage
deliberation on multiple viewpoints.”
“people tend to cultivate homogeneous
interpersonal networks, and those with strong
networks
partisan networks are particularly likely to be
surrounded by similar others.”
y
“Our findings suggest that media are far more
important than interpersonal net orks in
networks
exposing people to views unlike their own.”
Mutz and Martin, “Facilitating Communication across lines of political difference: The role of mass media,” The American Political Science
Review 95 (1) March 2001

93. “This study predicted that selectivity should lead
to extremity in candidate evaluations.
The data strongly supported this hypothesis.”
“…selectivity on the Web was a significant
predictor of extremity in candidate evaluations”
evaluations
“As
“A a result th t d t b
lt they tend to become extreme and
t d
polarized when making political decisions.”
Kim, “Issue Publics in the New Information Environment: Selectivity, Domain Specificity, and Extremity,” Communication Research 36 (2) 2009

94. Google have anything to do with selectivity?

95. Google search and res lt pages
result
account for almost
a quarter of all pages
f ll
Weinreich et al, “Not Quite the Average: An Empirical Study of Web Usage”, ACM Transactions on the Web (February 2008)

96. It facilitates the quick
scanning and foraging
behavior of contemporary
web usage.

97. Google is so good that …
g g
75% of users stick to first page of SERP
50% of users click on 1st choice
20% of users click on 2nd choice
Majority behavior if not clicking on first two choices?
Reformulate search
Nielsen + Loranger, Prioritizing Web usability, 2006

98. “Into the potentially problematic category
we would place the
p
unquestioning attitude about the
search engine, Google,
g , g ,
which many students see
as the total answer to
all their information
needs.”
Kiili et al, “Students evaluating Internet Sources,” Journal of Educational Computing Research 39 (2008)

99. “Students in this study seemed to
y
have a great deal of confidence
in their abilities to distinguish
g
the good sites from the bad.”
Yet
“Students are also not
consistently able t diff
i t tl bl to differentiate
ti t
between advertising and fact.”
Graham and Metaxis, “Of Course it’s true; I saw it on the Internet,” Communications of the ACM (2003)

100. “Overall only about 1 in 6 searchers …
Overall
can consistently distinguish between
paid and unpaid results ”
results.
Pew Internet and American Life Project, “Search Engine Users,” (2005)

101. Remember scanning behavior!

102. Usability analyst Jakob Nielsen calls it:
y y
Google
g
Gullibility
Nielsen Group, “User Skills Improving, But Only Slightly,” http://www.useit.com/alertbox/user‐skills.html (Feb 4, 2008)

103. Online selectivity is
narrowing scholarship

104. “Collectively, the models presented
illustrate that
ill t t th t as j journal archives came
l hi
online … citations became more
concentrated within fewer articles ”
articles.
“by enabling scientists to quickly
by
reach and converge with
prevailing opinion, electronic
ili i i l t i
journals hasten scientific
consensus”
James A Evans, “Electronic Publication and the Narrowing of Science and Scholarship,” Science 321 (July 18, 2008)

105. Power Law Distribution
rules the web (and more).
http://www.congo‐education.net/wealth‐of‐networks/figure‐7‐4.gif
p g g g

106. http://www.hitwise.com/datacenter/main/dashboard‐10133.html http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/uploaded_images/Hitwise%20July%202005‐719785.JPG

107. Whether you look at the web
y
as a whole or any subsection within it
(blogs, political sites, sports sites, etc) you
(bl liti l it t it t )
see power law distributions.

108. “We introduce a new term to describe the
organizational structure we find:
‘ googlearchy ’
– the rule of the most heavily linked.”
Matthew Hindman et al, “’Googlearchy’: how a few heavily‐linked sites dominate politics on the web,”
Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, 2003

109. I prefer the phrase (following Robert Michel):
The Iron Law of Googlearchy

110. Michel’s 1911 iron law of oligarchy is a political theory
that t t that ll forms of organization will eventually
th t states th t all f f i ti ill t ll
and inevitably develop into oligarchies.
My iron l
law of googlearchy states that all f
f l h h ll forms of search-
f h
optimized web-based information will eventually and
inevitably develop into oligarchies in which a small
y p g
number of sites absolutely dominate the discourse on any
given subject.

111. Environment
i

112. Some studies say that datacenters account for
between 1.2 to 2.0 percent of the electricity
consumed in the United States.
By some estimates, if you were to view datacenters
as an industry unto themselves, U.S. datacenters
would be approaching the top five industries in
terms of energy use.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en‐us/magazine/2007.10.green.aspx

113. US data centers thus produce higher g
p g gas
emissions than the countries of Argentina
and the Netherlands.
Even worse, these numbers did not
include Google’s power usage.
Google s usage

114. Q: How much does it take to power a Google data center?
A: It's none of your business.
Google considers power usage to be a trade secret
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=118

115. One
O estimate:
i
Every time y search Google y could
y you g you
power an 11-watt light bulb for an hour.
http://www.gimmiethescoop.com/data‐center‐power‐consumption‐global‐warming‐will‐the‐web‐crash

116. These numbers did not include data center power usage.
Moberg et al, "Screening environmental life cycle assessment of printed, web based and tablet e‐paper newspaper," Reports
from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, 2007

117. Cognitive impairment
C g iti i i t

118. This is the key one …
but is still under-studied

119. Is li
I online reading
di
actually changing our
cognitive abilities,
bl
perhaps for the worse?

120. There are plenty of
grumpy old teacher
stories about kids nowadays…

121. “The research literature on young people’s
use of information technology in their
learning suggests that in the case of
assignment completion at least, what was
more important than entertainment or
interest was to finish by the expending the
least amount of effort.”
British Library/JISC Study, Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future (2007)
“The popularity of Google is facilitating
The
laziness, poor scholarship, and complacent
thinking.”
Tara Brabazan, the University of Google: Education in the (post) information age (2007)
Tara Brabazan the University of Google: Education in the (post) information age (2007)

122. I have tried to provide a range
p g
of evidence that suggests we
should be worried
about cognitive impairment.

123. Yet there have been some claims
that in fact the new media environment
is making us smarter.
g

124. These claims are mainly founded on
y
the Flynn Effect
(Q
(IQ test scores have been rising 3-5 points
g p
per decade since 1930s)
This growth has however been in scores below the
median, not above it.
Sundet et al, “The end of the Flynn effect?” Intelligence 32 (2004)
Strangely, mean SAT score results since 1950s have
steadily declined
declined.
Flynn, “The mean IQ of Americans: Massive gains 1932 to 1978,” Psychological Bulletin, 95,

125. “almost all of the
almost
modest gain between
g
1988 and 1998
derived from the
g
geometric figures
g
test of spatial
ability.”
bilit ”
Teasdale and Owen, “A long‐term rise and recent decline in intelligence test performance: The Flynn Effect in reverse”
Intelligence 39 (2005)

126. Recent research indicates Flynn Effect has reversed in
the
th past d
t decade.
d
Sundet et al, “The end of the Flynn effect?” Intelligence 32 (2004)
Teasdale and Owen, “Secular declines in cognitive test scores: A reversal of the Flynn Effect” Intelligence 36 (2008)
( )
Teasdale and Owen, “A long‐term rise and recent decline in intelligence test performance: The Flynn Effect in reverse”
Intelligence 39 (2005)

127. Leisure paper-based reading
paper based
still remains one of the
strongest correlates of post-
secondary success.
Gallik, “Do they read for pleasure? Recreational reading habits of college students,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 42 (1999)
Kaiser Family Foundation, Generation M (2005)

128. National Endowment for the Arts, http://www.arts.gov/research/ReadingonRise.pdf (January 2009)

129. Recap:
p
Five Things
Wrong
with online
reading

130. Poor comprehension
Too
T much scanning
h i
Information Selectivity
Environmentally unsound
Cognitive impairment

131. should we do?

132. WARNING
Philosophy
ahead …
h d

133. “To behold, use or perceive
, p
any extension of ourselves in technological form
is necessarily to embrace it.”
“To listen to radio or to read the printed page
To
is to accept these extensions…
into our personal system
and to undergo the
closure or displacement of perception
that follows automatically ”
automatically.
Marshall McLuhan, “The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis,” Understanding Media (1964)

134. “It is this continuous embrace of our own technology …
gy
that puts us in the Narcissus role of …
numbness
in l ti to these i
i relation t th images [ t i ] of ourselves.”
[extensions] f l ”
Marshall McLuhan, “The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis,” Understanding Media (1964)

135. We
W are th t numb t recognize th t
thus too b to i that
“Man in the normal use of technology …
is perpetually modified by it.”
p p y y
As such, we tend to be unconscious of the
real effects of technology on the individual.
Marshall McLuhan, “The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis,” Understanding Media (1964)

136. we are going t
i to
WAKE FROM
this numbness
numbness…

137. “You must change your life”

138. We need to push students (and
ourselves) back to the printed
page.
page

139. Changes?
1. Reduced bibliographic expectations, but print-based
e.g., 2 print-based refereed articles, three chapters in book, etc
2. No research, but fixed, substantial, printed-out readings
e.g., provide students with substantial number of readings from which they
have to read a percentage.
3. Teach and re-teach how to evaluate information
Don’t expect the high schools to do this for you!
4. Print out and read, don’t read scan from your monitor
Even if you think you’re reading, you probably aren’t.

140. 5. Resist those continual calls to cheerfully adopt the
technology of the digital generation in your teaching.
The role of the University is to preserve and promote real learning, not to
push our students into a new dark age of voluntarily-chosen ignorance in
the
th name of relevance or f hi
f l fashion.

141. Randy Connolly
Dept. Computer Science & Information Systems
Mount Royal University, Calgary
rconnolly@mtroyal.ca
y y