Friday, December 30, 2011

TABLETS CLOSE BOOK ON PAPER

Agree or disagree? "Tablet computers and electronic readers promise to
close the book on the ink-and-paper era as they transform the way
people browse magazines, check news or lose themselves in novels."

“It is only a matter of time before we stop killing trees and all
publications become digital,” according to an observer overseas: "However, the jury is
still out on how the reading brain is adapting to screens. We need to
wait for the current reserach with MRI and PET scans to tell us
whether reading on paper really was superior, brain-wise, in terms of
brain chemistry, to reading off screens."

Readers are showing increased loyalty to digital books, despite
reservations about how the reading brain "reads" off screens,
according to a U.S. book industry study group.

"The e-book market is developing very fast, with consumer attitudes
and behaviors changing over the course of months, rather than years,”
said a study group spokeswoman, who added: "But yes,
if it can be shown that the reading brain finds reading on paper
superior
to reading off screens, then we are going to be in big trouble."

Concerns about e-book reading are diminishing, with people mainly
wishing for lower device prices, and not concerned
at all about how ''the reading brain'' is adapting to screen-reading, or
in the words of Cory Doctorow, ''screeniness'', according to a survey.


“I'm among those who believe that the new e-book craze expands a
person's interest in reading overall,” said another analyst
in Britain. "However, I must agree with experts that how the reading brain
adapts to screen reading is of paramount importance. We might be
barking up the wrong tree with these reading devices. Then what?"

"When you can get someone excited about reading in any way, you turn
on the reading ignition and it leads to all content,” he said,
adding that ink-and-paper works will continue to hold a place in the
mix because the reading brain seems to prefer reading on paper, in
terms of
brain chemistry."

He also believes it will be at least a century or more before print is
obsolete, and if current research shows scrreen reading to be vastly
inferior
to paper reading, it might never happen.

"Print might wind up extinct for newspapers, while magazines will need
to figure out the balance between print and digital,” he contended.
"It all depends what the final studies with MRI and PET scans show us
about the reading brain in terms of reading on paper compared to
screen reading. What if we are wrong?"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sotaro Shibahara says

I'm not sure I understand what the concerns are about reading print versus digital.

I mean, we all (not me personally, but the human race) once read and wrote on stone tablets before the switch to papyrus, and I don't know that it had some... terrible effect on the human race: if anything, commoditizing writing and making it much less labour-intensive, ensured that the ability to read and write would eventually reach more people, despite all clerical attempts to prevent the uninitiated from being able to read. And having that written history and cumulative human knowledge passed on more efficiently ensured our survival via the survival of that knowledge which was built upon by later generations.

If it's a matter of how it affects the eyes of the young, I could see some cause for concern because children's eyes are still developing, and just as we shouldn't let them play with the Nintendo 3DS until they're older, it might be better to restrict their use of screens which are rapidly flashing lights into their eyes at a constantly high rate continuously over many hours. I suppose that in turn might cause some changes in brain chemistry, and in the way we consume information, but I actually think something like Google and Wikipedia are much worse for the mind in terms of memory retention.

I remember reading another article about how because we've become increasingly reliant on search engines and an easily accessible online source of information that we're rapidly losing our ability to retain information that our brains are deciding we no longer need to be able to recall, because it can be so easily found again online if we were to forget it. Case in point is what I just did, which was Google the terms 'Google' and 'memory retention' because I for the life of me could not recall the source of the article. It's possible it could be related to the fact that I read it on a computer screen, but it's more likely it's because my brain knows that even if I forget it, I can always look it up again. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/15/google-memory-study-columbia-university_n_899730.html)

There are a lot of books I read when I was younger, long before the internet and when I had a much better memory recall ability (before booze and drugs and other myriad distractions and things destructive to the brain appeared in my life), yet now I can't recall what those books were called, who wrote them, etc. Of course, that could also be the booze and drugs which I consumed later in my life, but I recall in high school (when I was a straightedger and didn't drink, do drugs, smoke, etc.), I was desperately trying to recall the title and/or author of some science fiction novel that I'd read in junior high which had some memorable sex scene written in it (it was exciting at the time for me, I'm sure), yet I could not for the life of me recall either author or title of the book, even though I remember reading it more than once, and could even vaguely recall the plot. Even now I've tried Googling it based on what little I remember about the story, but I've yet to find it. So clearly, even with things that I was interested in recalling, about a memorable book which had clear emotional (and of course, sexual) links to my brain, didn't prevent me from almost entirely forgetting some of the important things about it, despite it being a print book that I'd read more than once.

Anonymous said...

In general, though, I think passive human acts of any type (watching TV, watching movies, reading a book) are probably much more likely to be forgotten, particularly if it is on some form of permanent media easily obtainable, Google or no Google. If I forget aspects of a movie, I could always rent the movie again, even before the internet made that ridiculously easy.

On the other hand, I can still sing almost all the Beatles songs (and probably most Genesis/Phil Collins songs) I learned from Grade 6 onwards, as well as some pop songs I heard a little before then, because the act of listening to music wasn't a passive passion for me, it was a case of singing along to it, and of course, that requires memorization of lyrics and also makes it easier to learn because there are things like audio cues via the music, as well as rhyme, not to mention the physical act of singing requires muscle movement and so even if I might not recall the exact words in my head, if I start singing the song my muscle memory will take over. (http://www.singingtv.com/2010/04/22/ep-22-muscle-memory-and-the-voice/)

Interestingly enough, my Grade 6 teacher made learning pop songs part of our class curriculum and there are quite a few songs I can still belt out in karaoke that I learned solely in that one year, even though I never even had the actual album/cassette and didn't hear some of them that often on the radio, just because we were given photocopies of the lyrics and we sang to those songs in class all the time, for that one year. At the time, I remember thinking it such a frivolous albeit fun part of school, but I never would have dreamt in a million years that I'd still remember those songs so well that I could sing them at karaoke without practising, at age 36. I didn't much care for that teacher at the time, but I have to admit, long after I've forgotten everything else I learned that year in Grade 6, I still remember those songs and enjoy singing them to this day, so I guess he did something right. ;)See More
6 minutes ago · LikeUnlike.

Anonymous said...

In general, though, I think passive human acts of any type (watching TV, watching movies, reading a book) are probably much more likely to be forgotten, particularly if it is on some form of permanent media easily obtainable, Google or no Google. If I forget aspects of a movie, I could always rent the movie again, even before the internet made that ridiculously easy.

On the other hand, I can still sing almost all the Beatles songs (and probably most Genesis/Phil Collins songs) I learned from Grade 6 onwards, as well as some pop songs I heard a little before then, because the act of listening to music wasn't a passive passion for me, it was a case of singing along to it, and of course, that requires memorization of lyrics and also makes it easier to learn because there are things like audio cues via the music, as well as rhyme, not to mention the physical act of singing requires muscle movement and so even if I might not recall the exact words in my head, if I start singing the song my muscle memory will take over. (http://www.singingtv.com/2010/04/22/ep-22-muscle-memory-and-the-voice/)

Interestingly enough, my Grade 6 teacher made learning pop songs part of our class curriculum and there are quite a few songs I can still belt out in karaoke that I learned solely in that one year, even though I never even had the actual album/cassette and didn't hear some of them that often on the radio, just because we were given photocopies of the lyrics and we sang to those songs in class all the time, for that one year. At the time, I remember thinking it such a frivolous albeit fun part of school, but I never would have dreamt in a million years that I'd still remember those songs so well that I could sing them at karaoke without practising, at age 36. I didn't much care for that teacher at the time, but I have to admit, long after I've forgotten everything else I learned that year in Grade 6, I still remember those songs and enjoy singing them to this day, so I guess he did something right. ;)See More
6 minutes ago · LikeUnlike.