I prefer to read

I was searching for ideas for cooking skinless boneless chicken. I put those three words into Google, purposefully leaving out specifying a part. For what it's worth, results for breasts outnumber thighs three to one, it appears.

I pick a link. About fifteen seconds into reading the article, a little box zooms out of nowhere and begins playing some sort of techno march, with prominent drum machine flourishes. This box reveals controls to mute the audio as a tease, for about a nanosecond, I waste precious time hovering the cursor, right and left clicking in vain as I realize that the smart play is to mute my whole machine.

My entire train of thought has been derailed. My dining room was a quiet place until this electronic invasion occurred. It's like reading in a library, only to have a guy at your table suddenly turn on a loud boombox.

Growing numbers of us prefer instructional videos over instructional articles. I have no problem with offering both, but reading lets me think at my own pace, reflect, and redirect. Videos lock me in to their pace. Loud popup ads send me to the thesaurus, looking up "hate."