The other day I was sitting in Starbucks and glimpsed a copy of newspaper out of the corner of my eye. The two people sitting at the table next to me were speaking way too loud and I couldn't concentrate on the book I had brought to read. (That's a topic for another day . . .) Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a newspaper and start leafing through the pages. Let me just say that newspapers are rather awkward to read when you don't have a nice, big table to lay the thing and you must hold it up at a comfortable level to read an article from top to bottom, or I am just a bit clumsy with the most mundane things.
As I started to read this newspaper in my usual way, something odd leaped out at me--I was extremely aware of how I was reading. I didn't just read articles on each successive page I turned. I found myself quickly flipping through the whole thing, glancing at each page and taking in each headline. I might have read a paragraph or two of an article, but didn't read the entire thing. Then, I went back and read the articles that really caught my attention. All this time, I'm thinking, 'Gee, I must look so weird flipping back and forth through this newspaper as if I have ADD or something'. Now, I was wondering if I'm just plain eccentric, or if there is a reason why I read this way.
Oddly, this whole experience made me realize that reading this way let me pay more attention to articles that I really want to read since I kind of 'previewed' the rest of the paper. I think this is a reason why I like to read reviews--whether its music, movies, etc. There is just so much information and stimuli that hits us from all over our society and culture that we need some kind of way to filter through everything and just focus on what is meaningful to us. At the same time, this kind of 'previewing' also allows someone to expose himself to a variety of different viewpoints and experiences without going crazy trying to find out everything about so many different subjects.
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