Online News Readers Read More Of The Story
Users of news websites spend longer reading articles than those reading print newspapers, according to research from the Poynter Institute in America.
In a laboratory setting, 600 people were given identical stories to read. The research showed that readers read more online, where 75% of the text in an online story was read compared with 62% in a broadsheet newspaper and 57% in a tabloid paper.
The research was conducted using “eye tracking” technology, where readers wore special glasses that tracked where the wearer’s gaze rested.
The study claims to challenge conventional wisdom that online readers lack the attention span of their print counterparts. Sara Quinn, a co-author of the study, said: “We were amazed by these numbers. A surprise was that a larger percentage of story text was read online than in print.”
Eye tracking experiments are not new, as previous research has been conducted to test effectiveness of magazine adverts (see Magazine Advertisers Given Chance To Test Creative Work) as well as by BSkyB who used eyetracking research to investigate how a viewer watches the advert breaks when fast-forwarding at x30 on their Sky+ box (see Sky Research Aims To Maximise Brand Exposure).
Poynter Institute: www.poynter.org