In April 2007, the Poynter Institute [1] released the findings of its 2007 EyeTrack study on reader behavior.

Poynter's Media Business Analyst, Rick Edmonds [2], writes:

You can't get much more basic than the lead finding of Poynter's EyeTrack07 [3] study, presented this morning to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C.

Readers select stories of particular interest and then read them thoroughly.

And there's a twist: The reading-deep phenomenon is even stronger online than in print.

At a time when readers are assumed to have short attention spans, especially those who read online, this qualifies as news.

That was the predominant behavior of roughly 600 test subjects -- 70 percent of whom said they read the news in print or online four times a week. Their eye movements were tracked in 15-minute reading sessions of broadsheet, tabloid and online publications. Evidence from these sessions revealed how long readers spend with the stories they pick, as well as a host of other details about reading patterns...

Click here [4] to read Edmonds article on the EyeTrack07 findings in its entirety on the Poynter Institute website. Edmonds' article contains links to videos, slides, and a brochure outlining the study's findings.