Clearly, people take pleasure in having control, or the illusion of control[, in their reading]. But the freedom to skip around whole continents of text like a Martian flying saucer, scooping up sentences here and there, is pretty much wasted on genuine readers, because those are the people who know that reading is mostly for making discoveries, learning how and what things are—and who know that to do much of that, a flying saucer is not what you need. You have to walk through the text, and for that you need good eyes, good feet, and lots of time.

Robert Bringhurst, What Is Reading For?