When people see that I highlight text while I'm reading, they always want to know what practical reason it serves. The simplest answer is that it kind of helps me track the text, but it's less than that. It also isn't quite just a nervous habit. The only description that makes sense to me is that it feels like a physical connection to the page. More like spinning a pen, or rolling an object in your hand while you think about it. Like the mouse is my fingers and I'm just sort of fiddling with the page, like flicking through page edges of a book just for the feel of it.
Good call. Like how I used to drag highlight boxes on the desktop when I was thinking of what to do next. I never wanted to select anything, I just liked to do it.
Me too. I desperately wanted to turn that feature off but never managed to find a way. I can't tell you how many times I was just jiggling a window around (usually the browser, while I thought something through or tried to work out what I was going to do next), and all of a sudden my other windows got minimized.
Before that it used to be holding the shift key for 5 seconds while I paused to think. That was especially infuriating if you didn't notice and ended up with 'sticky keys'.
I've replaced the highlight desktop habit with type in URLs and press enter habit. "n<CR>" to get to HN is definitely one of them. But not to get to HN, but just because I'm in deep thought or making a decision.
This could probably fill an entire separate thread but I love this thought. I am only just now remembering that I actually used to sit down at a computer and .. wait for it.. FINISH. I'd do something.. be done. Then I'd go do something else.
I remember something similar, though the real cause of my time on the computer ending was because I was on dialup and that would tie up the phone line. This was back when I was much younger and with my parents, but after my family moved all of our phones off the landline and to cellular, we ended up getting a lot more use out of the computer. After all, the computer only had entertainment purposes if you had a movie or a game, and all our games were the single player sort. So, with the advent of the Internet, there were things to do on the computer to pass the time, like browse webrings and forums or try and fail to learn Esperanto (and RPG Maker 95, which probably contributed a lot to my interest in game development).
Before all that, I spent a lot of time climbing trees and wanting to be an architect and writer (the latter of which I've been pursuing for a while now). My brother and I'd drag planks into trees and we'd build little things we called forts and make up our own currencies (using the tabs on soda cans, for example), we'd play with our family's chickens and cats, and we'd grouse about picking up fallen apples (because it was boring) and so on. Odd to think how little of any of that I'd get away with now -- now I'd suffer some odd looks from folks for climbing a tree that looked especially climbable. Really, the computer was just for Doom and Encarta and writing book reports. That's just rambling though and not all that interesting or indicative of any change other than growing up a bit.
Unfortunately, I was a child back then, so my memory of pre-Internet computer use is probably different than that of someone who was an adult the entire way through. Would be nice to see a bunch of people writing about it - not so much about how computers and the 'net changed things, but what they were like beforehand without concerning themselves too much with the difference between now and then.
To be honest, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it wasn't to do with "thinking of what to do next", perhaps I just made that up in my memories.
However, I have clear memories of dragging boxes back and forth. They are so clear that I even remember inching the edge of the box closer and closer to the edge of an icon and seeing when it would select it. Also, I remember making the box thinner and thinner until it would either disappear, or you would get a single thick line when the dashed lines on either side were lined up with each other.
The only thing I don't remember is why or when I did it :)
ALA New York Times. Although, I checked right before writing this, and it seems they got rid of it, or at least, they replaced it with a not less annoying, but potentially more profitable full page pop-up that forces you to sign up. I wonder if once singed, they have the auto-search. Can anyone confirm?
Those sites bug me too, as a heavy user of highlighting. It also causes me problems reading editable text, for instance in a text editor. Sometimes I'll accidentally click and drag a selection to a different part of the text without noticing. I usually notice, but if I don't it can cause problems later, especially with text that is code, where it can cause mysterious bugs to show up.
I don't highlight to read, and JIRA's new behavior irritates me. When I need to copy and paste something, having the box suddenly change to edit mode throws me off.
Thank you for explaining it in this fashion. "Nervous habit" and "spinning a pen" completely capture the feeling and reasoning behing why I select text. I usually rapidly select random chunks of text while making my way through a piece. At some level, I think it may also help me stay focused on the page itself (as I have a tendency to get distracted easily).
I feel that is a vary tech-person oriented habit. A gut feeling tells me the poll results will be very different among non techie folks. I remember my parents getting annoyed with my highlighting when helping them read family emails.
As I read each of the options above, I was thinking similar thoughts. It's kind of a text tracking thing and somewhat habitual.
I might highlight one section of text or paragraph and not another. Sometimes I highlight nothing. But, if it is a lengthy bit of text, I often find myself highlighting swaths of text for some reason.
+1 here. It's just fiddling around. And it makes me really upset when I highlight some text and it's really low contrast (like on these HN discussion threads).
Although I still think the contrast & place-tracking stuff is part of it, I'm realizing the want-to-fiddle thing is a big factor for me too. One thing is that when I use a trackpad (makes it sort of cumbersome to select text), I find myself idly playing with the two-finger scroll, pushing the page up and down even though I'm reading something in the middle of the screen. I think it's the same impulse.
Each sentence or paragraph is another hurdle to clear. Marking a selection provides the satisfaction of marking that I cleared it (and allows me to avoid rereading too much when resuming after an interruption or break).
I get extra annoyed when something prevents this. For example, a PDF viewer that loses a selection on a shift-click, rather than expanding it. I feel this actually increases the effort of reading, by taking away the easy tracking benefit.
Here's another reason / hybrid of a couple. I noticed when reading this thread, I selected your comment and then scrolled whilst reading. Allows multitasking and faster scanning - I'm reading the text as the page scroll and the highlight makes it easier, whilst getting ready for the next section below.
Yes! I sometime highlight, but often just hovering the cursor over the sentences even words around, like I am rolling pen or something, shaking legs or body, when I am thinking.
It's subconscience speed reading that we all learned naturally. If you look up the techniques around speed reading, it's basically what we're doing out of "nervous habit".
I've been doing this for about a year and a half now. I noticed my reading speed increased drastically along with this habit. I haven't done any actual measurements, but the speed difference is especially noticeable when I read from paper, or images of text.
The connection to the page thing makes the most sense to me. I used to do this all the time, but since Apple's magic trackpad, I've lost the habit for the most part.
I'm curious to know if you use a mouse or trackpad. I get the same connection with the page by twitching the page with two finger scrolling on my trackpad.
