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posted by janrinok on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the read-all-about-it! dept.

Michael Rosenwald writes in the WaPot that textbook makers, bookstore owners and college student surveys all say millennials still strongly prefer reading on paper for pleasure and learning, a bias that surprises reading experts given the same group’s proclivity to consume most other content digitally. “These are people who aren’t supposed to remember what it’s like to even smell books,” says Naomi S. Baron. “It’s quite astounding.” Earlier this month, Baron published “Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World,” a book that examines university students’ preferences for print and explains the science of why dead-tree versions are often superior to digital. Her conclusion: readers tend to skim on screens, distraction is inevitable and comprehension suffers. Researchers say readers remember the location of information simply by page and text layout — that, say, the key piece of dialogue was on that page early in the book with that one long paragraph and a smudge on the corner. Researchers think this plays a key role in comprehension - something that is more difficult on screens, primarily because the time we devote to reading online is usually spent scanning and skimming, with few places (or little time) for mental markers.

Another significant problem, especially for college students, is distraction. The lives of millennials are increasingly lived on screens. In her surveys, Baron writes that she found “jaw-dropping” results to the question of whether students were more likely to multitask in hard copy (1 percent) vs. reading on-screen (90 percent). "The explanation is hardly rocket science," says Baron. "When a digital device has an Internet connection, it’s hard to resist the temptation to jump ship: I’ll just respond to that text I heard come in, check the headlines, order those boots that are on sale." “You just get so distracted,” one student says. “It’s like if I finish a paragraph, I’ll go on Tumblr, and then three hours later you’re still not done with reading.”

 
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  • (Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:57PM

    by SlimmPickens (1056) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:57PM (#149657)

    Heh. Those people don't have e-ink. I just wish I could have something like a paperwhite 3G kindle without the Amazon account.

    The issue of people developing bad reading habits is a seperate one IMO. In this day and age switching between searching, skimming and absorbing is part of reading itself, if you can't do it you can't read.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by physicsmajor on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:39PM

    by physicsmajor (1471) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:39PM (#149679)

    You might want to check out the Kobo Aura HD. It's basically a paperwhite sans Amazon.

    Also, the Nook Simple Touch is amazing for pure reading on an ergonomic level. The resolution may not be quite as high, but it's past high enough. I've read probably a hundred thousand pages on mine.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:17PM

      by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:17PM (#149742) Homepage Journal

      That's what I use. It's good for reading fiction, some pdfs -- stuff that you read sequentially.

      pdf's that are from conference proceedings in two columns in sall type to save money when printing it for the paper proceedings -- these are almost unreadably small. The zoom feature requires too much scrolling to be comfortable.

      Not very useful for mathematics. Mathematics epubs are often properly formatted, and hence readable, but often have cross-references. "Applying equation 7.34 we obtain ..." And whoever formats them seem to forget to use the epub HTML codes for links. The result is a *lot* of paging around whereupon you lose where you were originally. For a paper book, you'd just keep your thumb in it whhile you paged back.

      For technical pdf's like that I use my Android tablet (approx 10-inch screen) and there are a variety of pdf viewers available. This kind of works.

      In general, when the content permits it, I prefer an e-ink e-reader.

      -- hendrik