In the world of higher-ed, one thing that never changes is that we do a lot of reading. These days, many of us are doing more and more of our reading online. Whether it’s a blog post on an iPad or a summary of a scholarly article on a laptop, we’re spending more and more of our reading time looking at electronic screens. With that in mind today’s #uptechtip covers using the Reading Mode built into many computer and mobile browsers. It’s not so much how to read the internet, but rather, how to make the internet more readable.
#UPTechTip: Use Readability Modes to Reduce Eyestrain
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Many web browsers of both the computer and mobile variety support a reading mode. These modes help eliminate distracting clutter and allow you to customize fonts, text size, and choose high contrast text/background. Below is a brief summary of how to take advantage of these features and hopefully save yourself some eye strain!
Safari
Apple’s browser offers a reading mode on both Mac computers and iOS devices like iPads, iPhones, and iPods (in case you’re wondering – no word on an Apple Watch version)
Edge
Microsoft’s default browser for Windows 10 devices (such as their Surface laptop/tablet hybrid) offers a very nice reading mode.
Firefox
Mozilla’s free, open-source browser offers a reading mode on PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. Firefox’s readability mode also includes a built-in Pocket integration (more on this below).
Chrome
Google’s super-popular browser sadly does not include any readability features, although there are rumors that one is in the works. The lack of this feature might have something to do with Google’s interest in profiting from web-ads, so I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. If you want to add readability features, you can install a readability extension such as Reader Mode, or use a “Save and Read Later” service like Pocket.
Pocket is one of many services that let you save a webpage to read later. For the purposes of this article, this is helpful for saving articles from Chrome and using Pocket’s readability function. In general Pocket is a boon because it allows you to add items to your “read later” list and catch up anytime, from any device using the web or Pocket’s nicely designed mobile app.