Reading time is shortened

Despite the long time that social media users spend reading or viewing content, the amount of time spent on individual stories is surprisingly short.

On average, digital news reports a time of two and a half minutes. We are talking about texts no larger than five paragraphs of 50 or 60 words each, which is the most common parameter.

In the case of texts that come from interesting stories published in print, the time can exceptionally reach five minutes.

Studies, analyzes and metrics that have been obtained from monitoring and surveys around the world attest that readers like and understand better the text of a report, an analysis or a chronicle on paper than on digital.

But, unfortunately, the number of those who read printed newspapers is less every day than those who read digital content.

The latter, on the other hand, spend more than three hours a day regularly immersed in social networks, but this does not ensure the cognitive understanding of the texts, because there is a rush to move from one news item to another, not counting the effect of interruptions , if they use the mobile.

We admit that two reading patterns prevail. That of books, printed newspapers and digital ones totally differentiated for the same reader.

This detail is worth taking into account when evaluating how much distance education users are now learning over the internet or television compared to what they obtained through the physical textbook.

What we do know, in our daily informational experience in the digital, is that the consumption of each news that catches the user’s attention is 2.35 minutes and that the average time on the open page is 5 minutes.

Brevity, as I have been saying, has prevailed. Reading time is shortened and then we will know what will be the consequences of this new culture in the intellectual formation of future generations.

• Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.