There is a very old concept called a set in psychological research that helps explain the less linear, less sequenced, and potentially less nuanced ways many of us are now reading, regardless of medium. When we read for hours on a screen whose characteristics involve a rapid speed of information processing, we develop an unconscious set toward reading based on how we read during most of our digital-based hours. If most of those hours involve reading on the distraction-saturated Internet, where sequential thinking is less important and less used, we begin to read that way even when we turn off
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