I enjoy reading magazines, because of their ability to have current-type articles without the pressure of the constant updates of newspapers (which usually make you play hide-and-seek with their articles anyhow, what does that even mean, “continued on C4,” anyhow?) and internet resources. But magazines are very difficult for me to read, which means that I’m very picky about what magazines I read.
Words are basically amazing, as I’ve said before. I appreciate that words have a direct effect on me, and recognize their sway over me. So what’s the deal with magazines? Well, it’s like this.
When I read, I like to concentrate on what I’m reading. I like to start at point A and read all the way until the conclusion of the piece, presumably point Z. But in a magazine, there are little pictures, sidebars, timelines, sometimes they make you switch to entirely different pages to finish reading what you’ve started (sometimes it upsets me that they make you pay to read something that makes you play hide-and-seek with pieces of their magazine), and often they have corresponding inset boxes, just in case you need little extras on what you’re reading.
When I read magazines I have to either read straight through the entire article and go back to read the extras later (which is difficult, because my word radar knows I’m skipping over sections and yells at me), or I can look through the article first, read all the extra things, study the pictures, and then flip back and start the main text of the article once I’m finished reading all the bells and whistles. But when I do that, most of the time I have no idea what the side boxes are even talking about, seeing as I generally haven’t read the main article first, which usually directly relate to the extras.
It’s a tough call, which is usually why I have to skip magazines altogether. I make an exception for kid’s magazines (like Highlights, Cricket, Muse, or Ranger Rick) and Christianity Today and Reader’s Digest. Sometimes, if I have time and feel like proofreading, I’ll read Time.
Wow, that basically killed my whole point. That’s kind of a lot of magazines, more than I thought I read. Goes to show how little I realize about myself.
Actually, I know a lot of people who read a lot more magazines than that, if you’d believe it. But hey, if you don’t have time to read a book, and feel comfortable having to mentally skip all over pages like that, then magazines are as good as the next thing.
Till I get old and forgetful, however, I think my disdain for skipping around from box to box will insure many a tense magazine-reading sessions. I hope I'm a very happy old person, that's all I can say.
Words are basically amazing, as I’ve said before. I appreciate that words have a direct effect on me, and recognize their sway over me. So what’s the deal with magazines? Well, it’s like this.
When I read, I like to concentrate on what I’m reading. I like to start at point A and read all the way until the conclusion of the piece, presumably point Z. But in a magazine, there are little pictures, sidebars, timelines, sometimes they make you switch to entirely different pages to finish reading what you’ve started (sometimes it upsets me that they make you pay to read something that makes you play hide-and-seek with pieces of their magazine), and often they have corresponding inset boxes, just in case you need little extras on what you’re reading.
When I read magazines I have to either read straight through the entire article and go back to read the extras later (which is difficult, because my word radar knows I’m skipping over sections and yells at me), or I can look through the article first, read all the extra things, study the pictures, and then flip back and start the main text of the article once I’m finished reading all the bells and whistles. But when I do that, most of the time I have no idea what the side boxes are even talking about, seeing as I generally haven’t read the main article first, which usually directly relate to the extras.
It’s a tough call, which is usually why I have to skip magazines altogether. I make an exception for kid’s magazines (like Highlights, Cricket, Muse, or Ranger Rick) and Christianity Today and Reader’s Digest. Sometimes, if I have time and feel like proofreading, I’ll read Time.
Wow, that basically killed my whole point. That’s kind of a lot of magazines, more than I thought I read. Goes to show how little I realize about myself.
Actually, I know a lot of people who read a lot more magazines than that, if you’d believe it. But hey, if you don’t have time to read a book, and feel comfortable having to mentally skip all over pages like that, then magazines are as good as the next thing.
Till I get old and forgetful, however, I think my disdain for skipping around from box to box will insure many a tense magazine-reading sessions. I hope I'm a very happy old person, that's all I can say.
1 comment:
I tend to be really anal-retentive about the way I read magazines too. The way I see it though is that there's so little to read that I want to make it last as long as possible, so I purposely take a long time, trying to read everything that I might find even only vaguely interesting. And I only read magazines that we get, which is like three, or ones that I get on a trial basis. I'm too lazy for library magazines.
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