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Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

wired.com

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Re: Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

#11

Post by mrjatx »

ivansavz wrote: post #3

Print is particularly important for learning and "deep" reading. I find my IQ is at least a few points higher when reading in print rather than on screen. eInk devices are kind of good, but made awkward by the 0.5 sec screen refresh delay... There is something to be said about the versatility of hypertext, but I think we lose something in concentration, attention span, etc. because of the links.

I agree with everything except the screen refresh delay making things awkward. That has absolutely no effect on my reading and is barely noticeable in the last few Kindle generations (I've owned three).

What does bug me about ereaders is the software. I have 50 or so books on my Kindle and instead of just quickly grabbing a book off of my bookshelf and reading it until I want to grab another I have to scroll through and find the book- where the screen refresh DOES become noticeably annoying. Not to mention I own a ton of books on my Kindle that I've forgotten about simply due to the fact that they're hidden on page 10 of the library list.

Re: Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

#13

Post by arjie »

joeclark77 wrote: post #6

Am I the only one here who highlights, underlines, and writes furiously in the margins? I don't know how you can process a text or technical book without being able to touch it.

One would expect that digital formats are more conducive to this. You can theoretically cross-reference and amend notes and you are not constrained by the margin. Perhaps Fermat's Last Theorem may have been proved centuries earlier if he had had access to a digital book reader.

Re: Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

#14

Post by arjie »

mrjatx wrote: post #11
ivansavz wrote: post #3

Print is particularly important for learning and "deep" reading. I find my IQ is at least a few points higher when reading in print rather than on screen. eInk devices are kind of good, but made awkward by the 0.5 sec screen refresh delay... There is something to be said about the versatility of hypertext, but I think we lose something in concentration, attention span, etc. because of the links.

I agree with everything except the screen refresh delay making things awkward. That has absolutely no effect on my reading and is barely noticeable in the last few Kindle generations (I've owned three). What does bug me about ereaders is the software. I have 50 or so books on my Kindle and instead of just quickly grabbing a book off of my bookshelf and reading it until I want to grab another I have to scroll through…

While this is certainly possible, I'm surprised to hear it. I thought my reading was progressing at the same pace but then noticed that I took a week to finish a book that I'd otherwise finish in a few days.

Perhaps your eyesight is better than mine and you are able to use a smaller font (which permits more content per 'page'). The problem for me is that legibility suffers at lower font sizes.

Re: Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

#15

Post by ivansavz »

mrjatx wrote: post #11
ivansavz wrote: post #3

Print is particularly important for learning and "deep" reading. I find my IQ is at least a few points higher when reading in print rather than on screen. eInk devices are kind of good, but made awkward by the 0.5 sec screen refresh delay... There is something to be said about the versatility of hypertext, but I think we lose something in concentration, attention span, etc. because of the links.

I agree with everything except the screen refresh delay making things awkward. That has absolutely no effect on my reading and is barely noticeable in the last few Kindle generations (I've owned three). What does bug me about ereaders is the software. I have 50 or so books on my Kindle and instead of just quickly grabbing a book off of my bookshelf and reading it until I want to grab another I have to scroll through…

I agree, eInk delay is totally OK when you're reading sequentially, but becomes annoying if you want to quickly flip back to revisit something.

Re: Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

#16

Post by Jtsummers »

joeclark77 wrote: post #6

Am I the only one here who highlights, underlines, and writes furiously in the margins? I don't know how you can process a text or technical book without being able to touch it.

I did in language courses, but not in others. For math/CS courses I've found old books with dozens of pages of engineering paper stuffed in them, however. Probably the same sort of content you write in the margins. Paperbacks also lended themselves better to making notes within the text for me, but that was a psychological block (expensive hardback? keep it pristine! cheap paperback? meh, who cares?). I'm mostly over that now.

Re: Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

#17

Post by arjie »

droob wrote: post #9

For years, before Instapaper and Readability, I used a little script that copied the text out of the current page and pasted it in plaintext, then printed it from TextMate monospaced and 4-up. I'd shove the pages in a pocket or the backseat and read them in my free time. It's a great way to take notes, circle interesting bits, and compare them later. I haven't been able to replicate that system digitally.

Is there a reason you chose a monospace font? I recall reading that they have lower legibility for prose.

Re: Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

#18

Post by Jtsummers »

TillE wrote: post #4

> The most influential factor, he found, was whether they could see pages in their entirety. When they had to scroll, their performance suffered. There are still no good electronic devices for large format, color books. Which includes most textbooks. If a larger iPad is released, that will presumably be the primary target market. I'm looking forward to such a device myself, as a nerd with a large collection of tablet…

What I'd like is a folding tablet similar in concept to [1]or Microsoft's Courier [2] with two iPad sized screens. Given how thin the current iPad Air is, or the MacBook Air for that matter, and still possessing decent horsepower, this seems particularly feasible these days. Give it a stylus input device for note taking. You can turn it over laptop style and get custom input layouts for different applications. Balance the thickness/weight of each side by balancing battery on one half, processing power on the other. I've been imagining a device like this for 20 years, maybe one day it'll happen or I'll try my hand at hardware hacking.

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/16/toshibas-dual-screen-libr...

[2] http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digita...

Re: Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper

#20

Post by noobermin »

crayola wrote: post #5
j2kun wrote: post #2

> And research finds that kids these days consistently prefer their textbooks in print rather than pixels. My students only look at their textbook for the assigned exercises. I'm sure they'd prefer not to have one at all.

What are they studying? I find that scientific textbooks (machine learning, etc) are much more usable as books than as pdf, as I need to often jump from one chapter to another and it needs to be the matter of a split second (or I won't bother to look for the information). But perhaps mileage varies.

I still don't see how a book with text's "realness" helps. I don't see how flat paper with ink printings is "tactile" enough and not in fact just as abstract as any method of digesting information second or third hand (at a computer terminal, reading a newspaper, attending a lecture, etc.) vs. our evolution's first method of information gathering: experience; you know, going outside, feeling a rock, finding your way through town and mapping it out in your head... I'm 24, but I still remember before the internet became what it is today and even then, reading was considered "boring" by everyone other than nerds because, surprise! it was a pretty abstract activity.

I think the real factor is the preference for paper and the learned habits with reading on it. People simply have learned first to "deep read" with books, so they read/learn easier since they can tap those already familiar (perhaps subconcious) habits without having to figure out new ones. Unfortunately, phone and tablet screens are associated with mindless or at least light reading and aversion, not deep cognition, so perhaps that's why there is some observed deficit in reading on them.

Still, I'm going to accept the "science is not quite settled" part of the article. Obviously there is some deficit ninnsome cases but we don't know why.

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