How many times have you been on a webpage, seen an interesting link or story and shifted your focus to that completely?

After 15 minutes, I usually have eight tabs open, music playing and I’ve completely forgotten my original purpose of logging on. This unintentional style of Web surfing is majorly because of the RSS feed.

RSS – which stands for “Rich Site Summary” is the “timeline” layout almost every application has now adapted. It began with a couple innovative websites and now has spread across all platforms and devices. It’s a huge part of our daily lives and many of us might not even realize it. The “feed” isn’t just a popular layout; it has become our preferred method of consuming information.

According to a 2007 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, almost half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure. Society is finally beginning to accept that the problem may not be the content but the context in which the content is viewed.

Last May, BBC news writer Sean Coughlan, performed a study that proves this theory is correct. He surveyed almost 35,000 “Screen-agers” from the ages of 8-16 and found that 52 percent prefer to read on screen, 32 percent prefer print and the rest were indifferent on the subject.

We are a product of our generation. The notion that this society is somehow less intelligent because we read less books is ludicrous. It all depends on which content you choose to consume.

I read dozens of articles on my smartphone and laptop daily and only pick up a book when I’m studying for a chapter test. We are still receiving tons of information — more than ever before and at a much faster rate. The only difference is we prefer to scroll up and down rather than flip a page.

RSS allows consumers to filter the information they receive. You do this by clicking “Follow,” “Like” or “Subscribe” on a social network, which tells your device that you would like to receive more information from this source in the future — a simple, yet revolutionary idea.

Prior to RSS, websites blasted their “best” stories to the masses and out of those, you chose what you wanted to read. Now the roles are reversed and you tell the website what you want to see on your screen.

The history of timelines and “feeds” can be traced back to the introduction of the iPod. Apple introduced the world to a new thumb-scrolling, scroll-to-refresh concept of receiving data. This is considered by many to be the origin of it all.

From there, startups like Digg and Reddit took the idea of user-chosen content and made their own websites. In 2006, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr adapted the “feed” and it really took off. The following year, the iPhone was released and the rest is history.
Essentially, Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple set the model for the entire industry to follow.

Can you imagine how weird it would be if we all scrolled horizontally instead of vertically to view Facebook statuses and tweets?

Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and now Vine, have proven that the real-time feed layout has become the standard. In 2013, the top 21 news websites and top five social media networks all used the timeline layout to relay their information. With a steady incline in iPad and tablet sales, there is nothing to suggest that this trend will stop anytime soon.

Reading a “feed” isn’t better or worse than reading print. It’s all a matter of preference. Newspapers are on their way out and social media websites are pretty much online magazines.

If you’re a print-only type of person, it might be time get acclimated with the new digital world or get left behind.

Aarick Knighton is a sophomore information management and technology major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at adknight@syr.edu

Published on January 22, 2014 at 2:30 am