Links

I read a really great article that I found on Professor Tomer's New Basement Tapes blog about links. It was really great. To summarize the article, the author is debating whether links are a bigger distraction or a bigger help to find more information. I personally agree with the author in the fact that when I see a link, I definitely want to click it to find out what that information is, which can be distracting while reading. HOWEVER, clicking that link may be more information about something that I wanted to know/learn that I wouldn't have gotten out of the first article. Yes, it can be a distraction, however, we aren't being forced to follow the breadcrumb trail.

Here is a link to that article : http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/links_in_text.php

And that article had a link to this article (http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/05/experiments_in.php) which is also really great. Maybe once I have some time to read something other than school books I will pick up Nicholas Carr's new book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

Both of these articles totally fit in with the book I'm reading for LIS 2000, Linked. I think that without the links in these articles pointing to other places, people might spend a lot less time on the internet because they would have to work for the information they are looking for. Or maybe that would make people spend a lot more time on it. I feel that really, it would probably be the first option because it seems like most people, myself included, are inherently lazy.

Have a great day!