I mentioned some time ago that I think the web is detrimental to my learning. Now, I think its time to put that into a little context and perhaps explain by what I meant by that.

First of all I’m a reluctant reader, always have been. As a young boy I would much prefer to be playing with my A-Team van (now buried in the garden) than reading a book. Eventually, I knuckled down and read when needed but I always had to force myself away from distractions to do so. I had to have everything switched off, hide away and avoid any sort of background noise or distractions. Distractions kill my concentration, I loose my trail of thought and can easily abandon books/articles because of it.

Thats still pretty much how I read today. When long passages of text have to be read I’m inclined to print them off and run away from the screens. A nice cup of tea and some non interactive paper allows me to focus.

Now, with the web, we can’t really be printing everything (think of the trees man!). Plus the web has a magic trick that makes it, in my opinion, more powerful than printed text. The hyperlink is like a super footnote or a reference. You can instantly be transported from a document by a professor in Berkley to one in Moscow, and you can read contrast and compare the two instantly. An extremely powerful and beautiful idea.

There is one problem though. As I say, I’m easily distracted. Hyperlinks distract me. Advertising distracts me. Hell, even a loud web design distracts me. I could, of cause, just learn some self discipline, but thats not going to happen quickly. So, In the mean time I’ve found a few things that really help.

RSS and a decent reader. So I got google reader set up and have a few feeds flowing into it. Its simple and stops meaningless meandering around sites I visit often.

Instapaper is a nice way to store things that you want to read, but also, converts articles to simple html, striping out images/flash and design elements. Useful in itself.

Finally, an iPad. I wasn’t expecting this when I bought the thing. I really just wanted a new toy to play with when sat in front of the tv. It has however become a great device for reading on the web. In particular, in conjunction with RSS, google reader and Instapaper. I use an “App” called Reeder which makes digesting articles from instapaper/google reader rather nice. Its design is unobtrusive and really feels like you are reading a book (more so than iBooks in my opinion).

So there is help for me yet.

One week ago I was involved in a nasty car crash. Don’t worry, all parties are alive and getting better.  As a result of this, unfortunate event,  I’m having to spend a bit of time at home to recover.

Now, I’m not good with unexpected time off work, especially when I can’t drive or really move about much.  In the upcoming week(s) though, between doctor visits and physio, I think I’ll avoid the internet and get back to some reading.

After far too long I’m starting to realise that the Web is detrimental to my learning.  It encourages reading of short and light articles.  My eyes seek hyperlinks and my mind is constantly getting distracted.  Time for a few cups of tea and a good book.