I don’t read as many books now as I used to, but since the vast majority of my internet usage is reading – message boards, fanfiction, news sites, etc. – I’m still reading just as much, if not more.
The book thing is more a reflection of not being able to find books I really want to read. I can sit and just read a book for hours if it interests me, but I haven’t found any that I really like recently.
However, I seem to have picked up a peculiar new habit of watching historically-based movies and researching them afterwards, so what books I do read tend to be non-fiction…a definite change. Very odd.
For me, getting my own home access to the internet coincided with my entry into grad school, so i read just as much as i ever did, if not more. But, in the absence of grad school necessity, i’m not sure whether i would read more or less.
Getting on the internet didn’t really affect the amount of time I spent reading, since by the time I got on the Internet ('95) I had been heavily involved in the local BBS scene for about 3 or 4 years. The internet simply replaced BBS’s, which were dying out anyway by that time. When I first got online with BBS’s I still read about the same amount and just watched less TV. Now that I’m on the 'net with a cable modem I watch pretty much no TV at all and still average about one book a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, sometimes a lot more (when I discovered the Hornblower series by Forrester for example I read the entire series in about 10 days)
I read a little less than I used to. I used to breeze through 2 even 3 novels in 1 or 2 weeks. Now it’s about 1 novel in the same amount of time.
I’d like to attribute that to the fact that I now have 2 kids and not because I spend so much time online…but I think it’s a little of both.
I have noticed that my attention span has grown a lot shorter since I’ve been online though and so has my patience. I’m often amazed at myself for getting annoyed with a download or a page that takes a few seconds longer than usual to load.
I read more since I started surfing the net because evil people keep posting book recommendations that tickle my fancy.
I can’t read on the computer screen for long. I prefer sitting on a couch or elsewhere comfy to read. Message board posts and Livejournals are about it before my eyes start to glaze over. I’d rather read a book or magazine article anyday.