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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.”
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:03AM
DRM is the primary reason I have held off on e-books. A tablet with .pdf reader is OK, but seeing how DRM is being implemented to restrict use of the thing, I see no reason to actually buy something like that. As far as I am concerned, the only use DRM has in a book is to force college kids to buy the latest course text as yet another way of extorting money because the kids can't substitute another good and pass the course.
I would just as soon buy a DRM'ed E-book as buy a bicycle with interlocks on it where I must first get permission from someone else to ride it. What use is the damned thing?
I saw those nooks at the bookstore, but no-one there could show me how to do anything useful with them. They looked to me like they had little use to do anything but buy stuff for. And then, one accident and your whole inventory is wiped out.
No thanks, I will use a tablet and PDF reader, transferring whatever files I am interested in reading to PDF and importing them. And knowing if I want to revisit the text 50 years from now, I can do so. I can still read my old .txt files, however I would be hard pressed to read anything "Microsofted". Those proprietary formats become obsoleted with software revisions and are only useful for temporary use, like use of a rented car.
This morning while doing the king-thing on the throne, I was revisiting my past with the old Sylvania tube manual I was given as a kid. It has complete documentation on things like those old 7 inch round CRT's that used to be in TV's. All the old vacuum tubes I played around with as a kid. There I was, mulling over all the old vacuum tubes, designing in my head all sorts of amplifiers, but knowing it would be too much work to actually build one of them. I wonder if I would be able to do that 50 years from now with today's E-book technologies? Or would it be like trying to load a modern word document into DOS? That book was copyright 1953.
I was a young kid when that thing was printed.
I have a hardcopy and a PDF of the RCA tube manual. Its on the net. I really need to find someone who scans books into PDF format, and get my Sylvania manual scanned so I can upload it to the folks who shared the PDF'd RCA manual with me. My guess is I probably have one of the last remaining old Sylvania technical manuals of vacuum tubes. The paper will eventually rot, but worse yet, I pass away and the book falls into the hands of someone who doesn't know what it is, and it becomes more landfill. The internet is now serving the purpose of an international public museum, and as long as we can keep it accessible to anyone interested, hopefully the works of those long since gone will be still be remembered.
If these works get DRM'd, for all purposes, they will cease to exist.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by ncc74656 on Thursday February 26 2015, @04:33AM
If there is a means to remove the DRM (as there is for both Kindle and Nook), I'll buy it, get rid of the DRM, and archive the clean copy...DMCA be damned. If there isn't (supposedly there is for iBooks, but I've not gotten it to work), I won't buy it. (Kinda a shame with the iBooks thing, too, as my late wife had over $40 in iTunes credit I could use for books...guess I'll have to burn it off on music instead.)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:48AM
I did not adopt PADS-PCB for DOS until a guy at the PCB house I was using shared a version that did not require the dongle.
At that point, I felt safe enough to know I was not going to be locked out of my own work because someone else wanted to force me into an unwanted upgrade - an upgrade that would likely be laced with yet more burdensome terms I have to accept.
That made the difference whether the little company I was with at the time went PADS or Protel.
We ended up buying three copies of licensed PADS of the same version, the company owner kept the dongles as "proof of purchase", and the three of us who were using the software used the neutered version.
It wasn't about piracy. It was all about resilience and resistance to extortion into unwanted post-purchase obligations. We knew some businesses practice an extortion model of holding our own work as hostage to enforce their demands.
Incidentally, even though all of my new stuff is in EAGLE, I still have PADS for DOS running in a legacy machine, and I can still support everything I had ever done for that company. I still have the original program disks and the manuals, but the dongle ceased to function long ago. Neither is that old version of PADS even supported, but by now it makes no difference... I know it will work as long as I can find a DOS machine to run it in. Same with Futurenet DASH-2.
And, yes, when my work with that company was complete, I took the dongle representing my paid copy with me. Its still in a drawer, along with the original install disks and the instruction manuals. I would be hard-pressed to even read the original install disks, but I keep them just in case anyone ever questions me about pirated code.
I do not steal stuff, but I see nothing wrong with trying to protect myself from businesses who I think are likely to pull a fast one on me, kidnapping my own work and holding it hostage, as a business model based on extortion to force me into something else.
If I am going to "own" something, I have to know someone else can't take it back anytime he wants.... just as he has to have assurance I cannot reverse payment anytime I want.
I don't think our lobbied congressmen see it that way, though.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Tuesday March 03 2015, @11:06PM
Investigate Calibre and the third party plugins named DeDrm_calibre_plugin.
Google is your friend.
You have to have a valid Barns and Noble, Amazon Kindle account. Basically if you can read it with their software on your pc then you can remove the drm. (In other words if it was a legal purchase).
(Score: 1) by ncc74656 on Thursday March 05 2015, @11:26PM
That's pretty much what I alluded to with the parenthetical.