I don’t know about you, but one of my goals in life is to never write anything that makes my readers throw up, resign or forget where they parked their car.

But that’s actually possible when writing for the web.

That’s because screen reading hurts your web visitors’ eyes, backs and brains.

1. Screen reading hurts readers’ eyes.

Reading on the screen is hard for a simple reason: Our eyes weren’t made to stare at little beige boxes all day. When reading online, your readers face these special eye problems:

• Light. Reading online is like reading with a flashlight shining in your eyes. And you know what happens when you spend your day staring at a lightbulb.
• Blinking. People blink less often when reading online than when reading print. That’s a problem, because blinking is what keeps our eyes moist and relaxed. They also open their eyes wider when reading on the screen. That makes their tears evaporate faster and leads to dry eye.
• Scrolling. The human eye has a normal reflex called optokinetic nystagmus. That’s scientist talk for the way our eyes flit across the screen to follow scrolling type. That constant jumping up and down can wear your readers out, cause eyestrain and cause readers to feel a little seasick. (So you can cause readers to throw up from what you write online.)

• Sore or irritated eyes
• Trouble focusing
• Dry or watery eyes
• Blurred or double vision
• Sensitivity to light
• Shortsightedness

In a 2020 study, more than 9 in 10 the respondents experienced at least one symptom associated with digital device usage.

Mobile matters: Cases of screen sightedness have increased by 35% since smartphones were introduced in the 1990s.

“I’ve had people come to our clinic saying they were going to quit their jobs because they couldn’t take it,” says David Grisham, optometry professor, University of California at Berkeley.

Not exactly the purpose of our intranet, is it?

So you literally can make people resign based on what you write on the web.

Is yours a site for sore eyes?

2. Screen reading hurts readers’ bodies.

Americans are experiencing more back, neck and shoulder problems because of their handheld devices, the American Chiropractic Association announced recently.

Plus, Americans are getting insomnia and body clock confusion from screen reading at night, according to Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. (Another one of my goals in life is to never write anything that makes my readers feel as if they’ve just stumbled off of a flight from Boston to Bhutan.)

Screen reading also causes nausea, headaches and muscle degeneration from sitting, according to the American Cancer Society and The Mayo Clinic. So yes, reading that web page does make your butt look bigger.

Is your site a pain in the ass?

3. Screen reading hurts readers’ brains.

But as writers, our biggest problem is this: Screen reading hurts your brain.

This is your brain on the Web: Constant problem solving (To click or not to click?) plus divided attention (You’ve got mail) lead to cognitive overload.

And cognitive overload, according to Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brain, leads us to lose the ability to think and reason.

In fact, a study by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London showed that online multitasking temporarily lowers your IQ more than smoking marijuana does. (And, from what I’ve read, is not nearly as entertaining a way to get stupid.)

“Try reading a book while doing a crossword puzzle,” Carr in The Shallows. “That’s the intellectual environment of the Internet.”

This problem multiplies on mobile.

(So, yes, you can make your web visitors forget where they parked the car.)

So how can you write web content that makes readers click instead of gag? Get to the point faster, organize better, make it easier to read and more skimmable.

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Sources: Bahkir, F. A., & Grandee, S. S. (2020). Impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on digital device-related ocular health. Indian journal of ophthalmology, 68(11), 2378–2383.

The post Reading paper vs. computer screen appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

You may have heard that social scientists recently added a new item on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

The classic model of what drives human nature looked like this back in the day:

• Self actualization: the feeling of doing what you were put on this planet to do
• Esteem: feeling good about yourself and what you do
• Social needs: having love, a tribe, companionship
• Safety and security: not being afraid of getting eaten by a tiger
• Physiological needs: food and shelter

Our modern world has revealed another, even more basic human need …

… Wi-Fi.

No kidding! And where’s juice? A charger? These are things we need to live through the day!

Mobile has become central to our readers’ daily life. And that’s a problem. Because it’s a lot harder to reach readers on a phone screen than it is to reach them on a laptop or desktop.

When your web visitors are reading on mobile, they:

1. Devote less attention to your message

Readers pay less attention to your page when they’re on their phone screens than their laptops or desktops. That’s because mobile web visitors are likely to get interrupted at any moment.

• They’re cooling their heels with your blog post at the doctor’s office — when their name is called.
• They’re looking at your Facebook status updates in line at the grocery — when it’s their turn to step up to the cash register.
• They’re researching the date of your webinar on the streetcar when they notice it’s their stop. Not only do they forget the date, but they also forget the fact that you’re having a webinar in the first place.

As a result of all of those interruptions, readers also …

2. Spend less time with your message

People spend an average of 150 seconds on a web page visit on their desktops, but only 72 seconds on their phones, according to Mobile HCI.

Which means that attention spans on mobile devices are half as long as on desktops.

Plus, the average time people spend on a page is going down:

• Average time on screen 2004: 150 seconds
• 2012: 75 seconds
• 2023: 47 seconds

Which means attention spans are down 69% in 19 years.

3. Read more slowly

People read 20% to 30% slower online, according to a survey of nearly 30 years of research by Andrew Dillon, Ph.D., of the University of Texas.

Reading on mobile takes even longer, writes Kate Meyer, a user experience specialist for Nielsen Norman Group. People spend about 30 milliseconds more per word when reading on a phone than when reading on a laptop or desktop computer.

Let’s do the math: If readers spend less time and read more slowly, they’re absorbing less of your message.

4. Understand less of your message

Mobile web visitors also comprehend less of your message.

Web pages are 48% harder to understand on an iPhone than on the big screen, according to research by R.I. Singh and colleagues from the University of Alberta. In the study, web visitors understood:

• 39% of what they read on a desktop screen
• Just 19% of what they read on mobile screens

5. Remember less of your message

Short-term memory is bad and getting worse. (I looked up a short-term-memory loss joke for this spot this morning, but I can’t remember what it was.)

Problem is, we can only remember what we can see. With a 3-by-9-inch screen, we can’t see very much. In fact, content displayed above the fold on a 30-inch monitor requires five screens on a smartphone, according to the authors of User Experience for Mobile Applications and Websites.

Reading your web page on a smartphone is like reading War and Peace through a keyhole.

6. Are less likely to act on your message

When the IRS improved its web pages about tax law changes, employee call center accuracy increased by 10%, reports TJ Larkin of Larkin Communications Consulting.

When the bureau printed the exact same web pages and left them in employees’ cubicles, accuracy increased by 42%.

The best way to move readers to act?

Overcome the obstacles of reading on the small screen.

So how do you reach readers online, even when they’re reading on mobile devices? Get to the point faster, organize better, make it easier to read and more skimmable.

The post What are the problems with reading on mobile devices? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Yes, reading that blog post does make your butt look bigger. But mushy thighs are just one of the symptoms of screen reading.

In fact, the side effects of reading on the screen are starting to sound a lot like the insert in my asthma medication.

Every time you write a blog post, web page, news release or social media status update, you are subjecting your readers to:

Back, neck and shoulder pain

Lugging your iPad and iPhone around can be a pain in the neck. And the back and shoulders.

Americans are experiencing more back, neck and shoulder problems because of their handheld devices, the American Chiropractic Association announced recently.

That’s just one more obstacle you have to overcome to get people to read your online copy.

Is your website a pain in the ass?

Insomnia

Reading that email or blog post before bedtime can literally cause your readers to lose sleep.

At least, that’s what researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital say.

The researchers observed folks reading an e-book on an iPad for four hours before bedtime. Then they watched the same participants read printed books before bedtime.

The results?

Reading from a screen before bedtime makes readers:

• Stay awake longer. Screen readers took 10 minutes longer to fall asleep than print readers. That’s because blue light from the screen reduces readers’ levels of melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep and sleep cycles.
• Get sick. That reduction in melatonin may also increase readers’ risk of contracting breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease and obesity, studies show.
• Suffer body clock confusion. Their device’s blue light also messes with readers’ circadian rhythms. In other words, reading your blog post on an iPad at 10 p.m. can give your readers jet lag. (And my goal in life is to never write anything that makes my readers feel as if they’ve just stumbled off of a flight from Boston to Bhutan.)
• Enjoy less REM sleep. Known as the “dreaming” phase, this crucial stage of sleep is what lets our brains process memories, emotions and stress. Afraid your co-workers might go postal? Have you ever considered that your web copy might be the culprit?
• Stumble into work late and exhausted. Not exactly the purpose of our intranet, is it?

The Harvard/ Brigham and Women’s research supports previous studies, which also found that screen time before sleep can be detrimental. Several studies have associated lack of sleep with shortened life span.

Mushy thighs, obesity, heart disease and colon cancer

You might want to sit down for this. Or not.

Prolonged sitting shortens the average person’s life span by two years, according to a study by researchers at the American Cancer Society published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

“Sitting is the most underrated health threat of modern times,” writes Tom Rath, author of The New York Times bestseller Eat, Move, Sleep.

In other words, sitting is the new smoking.

Sitting for most of the day, according to a Washington Post piece, is linked to:

• Organ damage: heart disease, overproductive pancreas, colon cancer
• Muscle degeneration: mushy abs, tight hips, limp glutes
• Leg disorders: poor circulation, soft bones
• Back problems: inflexible spine, disc damage, strained neck, sore shoulders and back
• Foggy brain: Brain function slows when we are sedentary for a long time.

The Mayo Clinic adds to that list:

• Obesity and metabolic syndrome: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, a bigger waistline, abnormal cholesterol levels

We can just hope that our readers are reading our online messages on their iPhones while standing at the checkout counter at Whole Foods — and not on the lounge chair in front of the TV.

Not what we mean by ‘killer copy’

In this environment — where reading your message can be detrimental to your readers’ health — how can you get the word out online?

Make it easy on the reader. When it comes to online writing, get to the point faster, organize better, make it easier to read and make your web content more skimmable.

The post Reading online hurts your web visitors’ bodies appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Reading on the screen is hard for a simple reason: Our eyes weren’t made to stare at little beige boxes all day.

When reading online, your readers face these special problems:

• Light. Reading online is like reading with a flashlight shining in your eyes. And you know what happens when you spend your day staring at a lightbulb.
• Blinking. People blink less often when reading online than when reading print. That’s a problem, because blinking is what keeps our eyes moist and relaxed. They also open their eyes wider when reading on the screen. That makes their tears evaporate faster and leads to dry eye.
• Scrolling. The human eye has a normal reflex called optokinetic nystagmus. That’s scientist talk for the way our eyes flit across the screen to follow scrolling type. That constant jumping up and down can wear your readers out, cause eyestrain and cause readers to feel a little seasick. (So you can cause readers to throw up from what you write online.)

The result?

Some 12 million Americans visit eye doctors each year because of computer-related problems, according to the American Optometric Association. That’s one out of every five people who come in for an eye exam.

Among the issues:

Computer vision syndrome

Some 50% to 90% of computer users suffer from eye strain, according to WebMD. No wonder computer vision syndrome is recognized by the American Optometric Association. It includes these symptoms:

• Sore or irritated eyes
• Trouble focusing
• Dry or watery eyes
• Blurred or double vision
• Sensitivity to light
• Shortsightedness

Eye strain

People who spend hours staring at a screen suffer chemical changes in their tears similar to folks with dry eye, according to a 2014 Japanese Dry Eye Society study. Symptoms include irritation, burning and blurred vision.

Screen-sightedness

Reading a blog post on an iPhone is like reading War and Peace through a keyhole — with a flashlight shining in your eyes.

No wonder, then, that screen reading causes — in addition to such symptoms as eyestrain and nausea — advancing myopia, aka shortsightedness.

Blame it on smartphones, says British eye surgeon David Allamby of Focus Clinics. He calls this epidemic “screen-sightedness.”

In fact, since smartphones were introduced in the 1990s, the number of people with this condition has increased by 35%, according to Allamby. By 2033, he predicts, half of all 30-year-olds will suffer from screen-sightedness.

A welcome site

Bottom line?

“I’ve had people come to our clinic saying they were going to quit their jobs because they couldn’t take it,” David Grisham, optometry professor at the University of California, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Not exactly the purpose of your intranet, is it?

Don’t make your reader turn a blind eye to your message. When you write web content, get to the point faster, organize better, make it easier to read and more skimmable.

The post How reading on screen vs. paper affects eyes appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Just 7% of adults around the world can manage conflicting requests to reserve a meeting room using a reservation system, then email people to let them know whether they got the room they requested.

Which means that if you create websites or other technological interfaces for technologically competent folks, you’ll miss 93% of worldwide adults ages 16 to 65, according to the 2017 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC^[1].

How low can you go?

The results?

Adults worldwide weighed in at an average problem-solving proficiency rate of 278 out of 500. That puts us at level 1, or basic, problem-solving skills.

That means that, on average, these adults can sort five emailed responses to a party invitation into pre-existing folders to track who can and cannot attend. But we struggle to locate on a spreadsheet with 200 entries members of a bike club who meet two conditions, then email the information to the person who requested it.

Below average

How do you communicate information via websites and other technological tools in an environment where many people struggle to solve problems using technology? Learn to write web copy and plan websites that overcome some of the obstacles of learning online.

About the study

PIAAC is a large, every-10-years study of adult literacy, developed and organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The study looks at literacy and numeracy, as well as problem solving in high-tech environments. The problem-solving study tested subjects’:

• Knowledge of how different technological environments (email, websites and spreadsheets) work
• Ability to use digital information effectively; understand electronic texts, images, graphics and numerical data; and locate, evaluate, and judge the validity, accuracy and relevance of that information

From 2012-2017, the PIAAC studied the skills of 150,000 adults, ages 16 to 65, in 39 countries.

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^[1] Highlights of the 2017 U.S. PIAAC Results Web Report (NCES 2020-777). U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.

The post World technology literacy skills: bad and getting worse appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..