[HN Gopher] Reading texts on paper versus computer screen: Effec...
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Reading texts on paper versus computer screen: Effects on reading
comprehension [pdf]
Author : sturza
Score : 174 points
Date : 2024-09-25 05:52 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (clikmedia.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (clikmedia.ca)
| dsq wrote:
| I can read something on screen ten times and not have it make any
| impression. Paper is much better for me personally.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Yes, this is me as well. Reading on paper is so much easier and
| faster for me, and my reading comprehension is substantially
| higher as compared to reading on a screen. Even an e-paper
| screen.
|
| I had long thought that this is because I'm old enough that for
| a huge portion of my life, most of my reading was on paper and
| people a generation or two younger than my wouldn't see the
| same disparity. This paper, however, seems to indicate that
| this may not be the whole story.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Maybe somewhat related but I also find that if I'm taking
| notes, I retain things much better if I handwrite them. Often I
| don't even need to refer to my handwritten notes because I can
| remember them, which is almost never the case with typed notes.
|
| And interestingly, it's specifically handwritten notes in pen.
| When I use a pencil it's much more like just typing them out.
| dostick wrote:
| The big question is, e-ink screens, how are they?
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Very curious as well - I use Supernote A5X for PDFs and
| sometimes I reach to the edge of the screen to try to turn a
| page
| tpmoney wrote:
| My own personal experience is I hate reading any long form
| material on a computer or tablet screen. Something about the
| experience was both painful and didn't seem to work with how I
| read. I bought a used e-reader on a lark at a flea market to
| try it out and picked up reading as a hobby again. Even with
| the newer backlit e-readers the experience is much different.
|
| As a first guess I would say:
|
| * "Paper like" looks, including slightly blurred text (since
| e-ink pixels aren't square)
|
| * Mostly reflective lighting and softer lighting when backlit
|
| * Dedicated and simple UI
|
| * Perhaps most importantly singly consumable, individual and
| discrete chunks of readable text
|
| Are all factors in making this a better experience. E-pubs that
| can reflow their text and so that each "page" is rendered
| legibly and in full are great experiences. Reading fixed format
| PDFs is better than on a tablet but not as good as an epub
| trueismywork wrote:
| Have you tried using redshift?
| tpmoney wrote:
| I have, and still find normal computer screens to just not
| work for reading long form content for me, even reading an
| epub in an epub app on a normal computer screen/tablet
| still feels off
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Might be refresh rate, have you tried a faster
| monitor/screen?
|
| I know some people _despise_ 60Hz screens because they
| 're too slow and they notice the flickering.
| safety1st wrote:
| Search the study for "ink," this is discussed briefly. They
| produce less visual fatigue than regular screens because they
| reflect ambient light rather than relying entirely on being
| backlit.
|
| In terms of comprehension the hierarchy probably goes paper >
| e-ink > all other screens. Hard to quantify the gap between
| each.
|
| I think this is a big point to consider: we've known for a long
| time that _taking notes_ increases recall to a degree that
| likely dwarfs this screen vs paper thing. There are studies
| where it 's like a 7-8x improvement in recall which is tied to
| comprehension.
|
| So if you want to actually remember and learn from stuff,
| definitely take notes. Preferably handwritten ones. Preferably
| do it all on paper. But the key is really to just be taking
| notes.
|
| Lastly there is also the argument that doing _anything_ is
| better than _nothing._ Some people aren 't going to get through
| any books at all if they're not audiobooks, so, they should
| keep on listening to audiobooks, even if comprehension or
| recall might not be as good that way. Personally I've been on a
| hardcover books kick recently, I've found I just get a lot of
| satisfaction out of reading a proper, high quality hardcover
| book from start to finish, alone or with a loved one,
| preferably with a cup of tea, so that's what I'm now doing.
| erinaceousjones wrote:
| > we've known for a long time that taking notes increases
| recall to a degree that likely dwarfs this screen vs paper
| thing
|
| Bit of anecdata that agrees with you here - a few years back
| I bought a decent colour e-ink android tablet (Onyx Boox). My
| intent was that I was going to totally use it for reading
| through journal papers without needing to print them out,
| regular ebook reading, etc etc.
|
| The VAST MAJORITY of what I have used it for, to date, is the
| note taking app. Like, not notes scribbled over whatever I'm
| reading.. just notes.
|
| The act of doodling notes in meetings and training and
| classes and when problem-solving definitely aids my [lack of]
| working memory and I definitely see how making notes improves
| comprehension.
|
| I bought a book replacement and it became a notepad
| replacement :)
|
| I too have found myself preferring a good solid actual book
| when it comes to reading, too. Ebooks just miss something
| tactile. I suppose that highlights when reading becomes an
| activity with intent, as opposed to something you feel you
| _have to do_.
| OnorioCatenacci wrote:
| There's a bit of irony in reading a text about printed vs.
| digital text in a digital text.
| tasuki wrote:
| My comprehension of it was very low.
| ikaros02 wrote:
| Nobody's stopping me from printing it
| jawilson2 wrote:
| My kids are in middle and high school, and they all have school-
| issued 13 in chromebooks. None of them have print text books,
| they are all online. I HATE studying with them, because of this.
| It is a nightmare to try to read a physics or math textbook;
| there is so much space taken by chrome, the book UI, etc, and the
| book usually displays full screen. Or, you zoom in, you can see 1
| paragraph and half a figure, and can't turn the page. Then, you
| switch tabs back to your homework, also digital, and can't view
| the book. God forbid I show them how to tile the windows side by
| side, but even if you did, the book would be even smaller, and
| the hw questions run off the side and don't wrap. It is
| unbearable. I resort to digging out my 20+ year old college
| engineering and math textbooks for physical references. The kids
| don't seem to mind it too much, but it is all they have ever
| known.
| manishsharan wrote:
| Glad to know I am not the only parent who feels this way.
|
| On a personal note, I am one of those people who highlights
| sections of text books using different coloured markers and
| scribbled notes on the margins. During my final exam time, my
| revision of materials was very efficient. I am not sure how to
| teach my kids these skills.
| lugu wrote:
| You can try to teach them to use a good pdf reader. At work
| there are a lot of Google doc to review. I always convert
| them to PDF so that I can have private annotations, named
| bookmarks and highlights of different colors (I can even diff
| between two versions). This way I am building a collection of
| PDF I can locally search.
|
| On this topic, computers are great to make flashcards.
| Instead of the paragrahed notes, when learning material, I am
| taking note in the form of short Q&A using markdown
| flashcards. Works great for me. Easy to review efficiently,
| easy to extend.
|
| This said, I am not sure this is adapted to kids. Hope you
| share your skills to your kids.
| reflexco wrote:
| What's your good pdf reader of choice? And do you use any
| software to organize your collection, or just the
| filesystem?
| elashri wrote:
| Not the same person but I would suggest using zotero for
| this purpose. This is one of the best use case of zotero
| (try zotero 7 beta). Combined with its iPad app you will
| find it can tick all your requirements.
| halgir wrote:
| Massive +1 to Zotero. And 7 is out of beta now!
|
| I recently went back to school and started using Zotero
| again. Reading and annotating books and papers on iPad,
| and then having access to all of my notes when writing on
| desktop is such a simple but amazing feature.
| skydhash wrote:
| On Linux, I use zathura (but I rarely annotate my PDFs
| and I use my iPad for that). On macOS, I used Preview (it
| was good enough) and PDF Expert (Not the subscription
| version) for editing pages and outline. On the iPad, I
| begrudgingly use Documents (by readdle).
|
| My PDF are managed by Calibre, but I export various
| subsets to the file system, so I can find them easily (on
| the network).
| photonthug wrote:
| > use a good pdf reader.. markdown flash cards
|
| Ever had the experience that your favorite shoes or watch
| is discontinued by the manufacturer? It sucks because
| you're back on the consumer treadmill again, wasting time
| and money on things that aren't as good and struggling with
| an annoying distraction that previously did not exist while
| you try to find something that works for you again.
|
| Software churn is just like this, only much worse. It
| should/could have been different, but it's not.
|
| So no, I don't really think we should take away all books,
| buttons, and knobs that offer a reasonably consistent user
| experience and replace everything we can with software and
| tablets. At least not until software learns to behave.
| Reading is as basic as tying your shoes. Would you really
| want SV PMs in charge of revolutionizing the shoe-tying
| experience every quarter, or dropping updates on you that
| change the place you've always stored your shoes?
| chrisandchris wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| It was perfectly fine, I loved it. It worked very well.
|
| They took it away, now I have to re-learn how to do it
| what I already knew with somethibg that I also have to
| pay for.
|
| Sometimes we should just keep things as they are and stop
| looking for the next thing.
| photonthug wrote:
| Relearning is fine if that's on the way to a new stable
| state, but I just don't see that happening. The fact that
| people are discussing the best pdf reader after like 2+
| decades of widespread usage, or the fact that signing a
| pdf often means rebooting into a different OS or using a
| cloud service that just wants a look at what kind of
| stuff you're signing just totally destroys the idea that
| this tech is working for us.
|
| Further, does anyone believe that pdfs are going to fix
| something like textbook costs? You will still pay too
| much for something that you don't really own now and
| cannot share or loan out, etc. Savings for the publisher
| or distributor cabals are not going to find their way to
| end users, or if they do then this will certainly be a
| temporary situation. They already know how much they can
| charge and get away with it, so...
|
| I'm far from a Luddite, but just know that tech is great
| to the extent that it gets out of the way and lets us
| focus on things we care about. Corporate tech is the
| opposite though, because it always wants engagement,
| feeding, maintenance. PDFs and chrome books that empty
| out your backpack might look like a convenience for
| students but who really benefits? The people that push
| Chromebooks get a captive audience of tax payers and
| children who are future android fans, the distributors
| that can empty their warehouses and fire a forklift
| driver, etc.
|
| Business as usual.. everyone should think critically
| about it when someone is telling them "these changes are
| for your own good".
| trueismywork wrote:
| I have this problem right since i got my first tab during ny
| bachelors. Given how expensive books are, I have had temptation
| to just buy 3-4 10inch kindles and wing it. Also, it's very
| important that kids use their hands to write even if they don't
| actually turn in handwritten work. The act of even just
| doodling while thinking has been shown to be extremely
| beneficial
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Just out of curiosity, have you heard of the Remarkable Paper
| Pro? I just got one and it's decent at the writing
| experience. Probably even good. But currently it's basically
| only for writing, you can export PDF or png to an email or
| their cloud. You can write on imported pdfs as well.
| delusional wrote:
| You'd have to be pretty well off to afford it as a student.
|
| I'd consider just using the campus printer to print
| whatever material you need. Or borrow the books from the
| library.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| I know; I was fortunate as a student to have a Gateway
| convertible(yay complicated hinge mechanism) laptop with
| a 4 year warranty. It was okay with notes (I did really
| love OneNote but portability of those notes was not
| good), and right before the end of the warranty period
| the hinge failed so they replaced it entirely. It was
| actually more expensive than the rm paper pro and I would
| relish the opportunity to have it back then. Granted, it
| was also a full Windows laptop too, which the paper pro
| is decidedly not.
| jajko wrote:
| You describe cheaping out for vastly inferior solution compared
| to what we had for centuries. Part of studying was going
| quickly back, switching between X pages before and here,
| highlighting quickly, making quick notes on the side and so on.
|
| Every one of us has slightly different memorization /
| comprehension techniques to grok foreign text and concepts
| within, and this crappy cheap new tech diminishes most of them.
| For quick overview why not, but for deeper studies this is bad,
| very bad.
|
| Just like I hated when Tesla started putting some crappy tablet
| instead of physical knobs, for vastly inferior driver
| experience. But masses clearly think differently and even here
| on HN many celebrated is as some sort of progress, so
| manufacturers aligned and are happy to save on better quality
| controls to keep their margins fat and juicy. Who cares about
| some focus or safety or long term reliability studies, look at
| that shiny glaring screen!
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Just like I hated when Tesla started putting some crappy
| tablet instead of physical knobs, for vastly inferior driver
| experience. But masses clearly think differently
|
| Do they? Why are physical controls back?
|
| It seems like car manufacturers just mindlessly jumped on
| what they thought was a fad, without ever bothering to test
| out their own cars.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I think you are right, together with the opportunities for
| cost-saving and cheaply-implemented upselling.
|
| And it is not as if physical controls are ipso facto
| better. I have driven a number of cars with physical
| controls that are hard to find and distinguish between, and
| which function modally.
| groby_b wrote:
| Physical controls aren't just ipso facto better, there's
| decades of studies to support that. Especially in
| situations where you need to use touch to maintain visual
| focus elsewhere.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Part of studying was going quickly back, switching between
| X pages before and here, highlighting quickly, making quick
| notes on the side and so on.
|
| Whatever the other trade-offs, you can do all that even more
| easily with a good PDF application.
|
| You also can open multiple instances of the same book, to
| have multiple pages open simultaneously.
| HPsquared wrote:
| And the magic of Ctrl+F, highlights, and comments.
| ralphc wrote:
| But none of that mitigates the problem of screen real
| estate. Maybe I'm just an old but I like to see more of the
| page.
|
| The Chromebooks, do they have a jack for a second monitor?
| A good sized monitor could take care of a lot of these
| problems. Even better would be if they can also put books,
| pdfs etc. on an iPad for reading.
| skydhash wrote:
| If I'm going to stay at a particular place for working, I
| want at least 24" in screen areas. 4K if I'm going to
| stare at text. An iPad works great if you're reading only
| or working on the document itself (annotation). Not so
| great for quick browsing.
| Loic wrote:
| In a pdf book, what I am really missing is the spacial
| position of a piece of knowledge. Particularly for
| reference books (I am an engineer, I still have a large
| amount of reference books) I look up on a regular basis, I
| know/remember where I need to search without the need to
| express it in words to run a search through a 1000+ page
| book.
|
| But, maybe I am just an old guy and this is just because I
| learnt this way.
|
| Maybe the new generation is learning directly "digital"
| with other knowledge access mechanisms. For example, I
| intuitively store a "position" in the book, maybe they
| intuitively remember a "keyword" to search for in the book.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| PDFs have pages, and I usually find that I remember about
| which page something is on in a PDF I am reffering to as
| I do when it is printed or in a book. I definitely think
| there is lots of oppurtunity to improve the UX, but there
| a a lot of advantages to electronic presentation.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| This is exactly the reason I dislike reflowable formats.
| Younger people don't seem to appreciate the benefits of
| the spatial position of information within a PDF/printed
| text. As an undergrad, by the time I finished a textbook
| chapter, I would have both the information and the
| general spatial layout of the text committed to memory.
| The latter greatly helped recall and cognitive
| integration. 30 years later, I can still pick up my
| undergrad textbook, dimly recall where the information is
| located, and quickly get back up to speed. The human
| brain has a powerful spatial 'muscle memory' for
| recalling information. This is lost when dealing with
| .mobi and .epub formats.
| adrian_b wrote:
| As another poster said, PDF files have pages.
|
| There are good PDF viewers (e.g. MuPDF), where you need
| only a minimum of movements for going to a page, e.g.
| pressing "719g" in order to go to page 719.
|
| Even when a PDF file does not have bookmarks and even
| when I do not remember the exact page where something is
| located, I can still know for instance that what I am
| looking for is about 20% before the end of the book, so
| if the book has 1400 pages I go quickly to page 1120 and
| I search around.
|
| With a good PDF viewer I can navigate through a book much
| faster than I can turn the pages in a physical book.
|
| Nevertheless, one needs to have a big high-resolution
| monitor in order to come close to the quality of a
| printed book. The current 4k monitors are a huge progress
| over the older 1080p or 1440p monitors, but their
| resolution is still insufficient to match that required
| to render correctly some of the typefaces that were
| popular for high-quality printing (but which have been
| rarely used after the transition to digital typefaces,
| being replaced by others more tolerant to low-resolution
| rendering).
|
| Because I read a lot of books, there are almost 10 years
| since I have last used a display with a resolution less
| than 4k and I have always used them only at their native
| resolution. I cannot understand why some people choose to
| use various scaling methods to make the text big enough
| (but ugly), instead of doing the right thing, i.e. the
| rendering of all typefaces at the maximum available
| resolution, but choosing their dimension in points big
| enough for comfortable reading (after setting the monitor
| dots-per-inch value to the true value for the connected
| monitor).
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| I agree with your points about PDFs. But what about
| reflowable formats? The only constant is the rough
| percentage of where the information might lie. This is a
| sorry second to a PDF/printed text that also maintains
| the layout.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Reflowable formats like HTML are a regression over
| traditional books and I consider them as unsuitable for
| any document longer than a few pages.
|
| I really hate those who provide some technical
| documentation in HTML format, without offering a PDF
| alternative, or at least some other worse format, like
| EPUB, but which still allows a book-like navigation.
|
| Even on the small display of my phone I still prefer to
| read books in PDF format, if the reader provides a good
| UI for pan and zoom, than to read reflowable HTML
| documents, because with the latter the unpredictability
| of the layout messes with my ability to remember the
| location of the information of interest, which is
| essential when I frequently have to navigate through very
| long documents.
| pxc wrote:
| Just wanted to drop in to say that this take reveals a
| blind spot with respect to visual impairment.
| Reflowability is really vital for visually impaired
| people who can still see enough to read.
|
| Panning in two dimensions is very cumbersome and brutally
| inefficient compared to scrolling in just one direction,
| especially if you have to much of it. If you can only fit
| a few lines of readable text on your screen at a time,
| it's really painful to pan across a fixed layout.
|
| (It's been my experience that PDFs are generally not as
| helpful to accessibility tools as HTML or similar formats
| can be, as well.)
|
| All of this is exacerbated on displays with slow redraw
| as well, like e-ink. In the end, I don't even attempt to
| read comic books or fixed-layout textbooks on my
| e-readers, for instance. Nobody makes color e-readers big
| enough for me to read those things comfortably. And my
| vision is still pretty good-- I don't necessarily use
| fullscreen zoom every day at work and I can still drive.
|
| > the unpredictability of the layout messes with my
| ability to remember the location of the information of
| interest
|
| Although technically the layout is fixed, navigation of
| fixed-layout zoom can itself feel quite unpredictable if
| you are also using fullscreen zoom, because now you have
| two layers of independent 2D panning, and all the while
| your viewport is only a fraction of the screen (in some
| cases even just 10% of it or much less). At that point,
| if you're looking at text, you can't see literally any UI
| elements, just the text. No display corners, no window
| borders, no title bars, no menu bar, no start menu. All
| of that spatial positioning you like to navigate by
| becomes state you have to keep track of in your head,
| your view of which is updated infrequently at best and
| only ever partially.
|
| There's also nothing in principle stopping you from using
| a layout-preserving zoom on reflowable pages. Chrome and
| Firefox both support this, for instance. By the same
| token and without loss of generality, you're perfectly
| free to fix your browser's zoom level and your browser
| window's size in pixels. It's also trivial to convert
| HTML to PDF with any of a number of free tools that are
| easy to get. In contrast PDFs often make spatial
| navigation the _only_ possible way to navigate, and
| converting the other way is much harder.
|
| All that said...
|
| > I really hate those who provide some technical
| documentation in HTML format, without offering
| [alternatives]
|
| I completely agree with this. Accessibility is intimately
| related to flexibility, hackability, and ultimately,
| freedom. Docs should be provided in a way that doesn't
| assume or support only one way of
| reading/browsing/working.
|
| I have a pet peeve kinda similar to your complaint, too:
| I hate it when tools have HTML docs (or even just READMEs
| or usage messages) but no manpage. Other formats often
| come in handy for me, too, but I want to be able to view
| the docs where I'm already using the tool, dammit!
| skydhash wrote:
| I like both. Fixed format is great for spatial
| navigation, diagrams and table (and PDFs usually are
| better typeset). But for primarily text books
| (fictions,...) and references, I will take reflowable
| formats. Both for reading on an eReader (nice on the
| eyes) and for quick navigation when browsing references
| (a strong point there for hyperlinks).
| dingnuts wrote:
| what I'm missing from a physical book is the ability to
| pipe it through ollama and directly ask questions about
| where to find the info
|
| I'm doing this with man pages today but as LLMs get
| better solving this kind of search problem seems like a
| major application
| jvan wrote:
| In study sessions in school I would sometimes look things
| up by thinking "it was on the lower left about this far
| into the book." I remember studies done years ago that
| showed reading a physical book improved memory and
| learning due to the geometry and positioning reinforcing
| the neural paths, and anecdotally that was definitely the
| case for me. I don't think I'm hallucinating them, this
| article cites several studies that support that. Anyone
| who suggests PDFs are just as good "because they have
| pages" is missing the point - they aren't physical
| objects, and that matters.
| hed wrote:
| I agree 100% as a fellow engineer.
| croes wrote:
| Can you name such an application?
|
| I can fold or flip a page so, that I can quickly view
| certain parts of the second page while I read the first
| one.
| delusional wrote:
| To the great of my then teachers, I used to scribble and
| write equations on my table while studying. I had paper, but
| for some reason I just loved doing math directly on the
| table.
|
| I was told off for it often, but I don't think I would have
| liked math as much as I did if I didn't have that option.
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| can't wait for the javascript error when I try to switch
| gears on the touchscreen of my future car!
| gosub100 wrote:
| I've never driven a Tesla, but don't they have voice
| activation? Can't you say "hey Tesla, reduce AC to low"? I
| totally agree that tactile feedback is superior to tapping a
| screen, but if it had accurate voice activation that would be
| almost as good for me (once I got used to the weirdness of
| talking to the car like Knight Rider)
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| They have and they are more than accurate enough even if
| you're not a native speaker.
|
| It's just unwilling to learn/change.
|
| Saw an Audi today which is same physical size and price
| range to a Tesla model 3. It was down right funny how much
| useless crap it has on the dashboard, how bad it looks and
| how claustrophobic it feels compared to model 3.
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| Anyone here know how it is in the UK? My kid will be starting
| school soon, and this terrifies me.
| red_admiral wrote:
| There have been reports on the BBC about some schools going
| completely screen-free, occasionally from parents' pressure.
| Good luck!
| kiloshib wrote:
| I recently took a CS101 class that used ZyBooks for the
| textbook and absolutely hated it for this very reason [1].
|
| The "reading" was basically a bunch of mandatory checkbox
| exercises that turn into a slog through a bunch of slow-loading
| prompts that were just "Click Next" to receive confirmation
| that I had read the info in the prompts.
|
| Absolutely miserable experience all around.
|
| [1] https://www.zybooks.com/
| Sakos wrote:
| Books are better in book form for one simple reason: Spatiality
| and tactility. Skimming, skipping pages, marking and jumping
| between different parts of the book. These actions are all
| extremely easy, intuitive and convenient with a paper book.
| There's no replacement for digital books. Using a mouse means
| you're no longer interacting directly with the medium and even
| if you do use a touchscreen, digital books aren't designed to
| be used or interacted with in any sane way.
| vundercind wrote:
| Paper books have _excellent_ UI, far better than ebooks in
| most respects. I _wish_ ebooks at least came close to
| matching them, because the damn things are bulky and heavy.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| One of my children is a maths undergrad (UK) and all their
| texts are on-line too. He's in a minority in that he uses the
| library and borrows books. Many of his cohort don't.
|
| On one hand, I remember how costly textbooks were and I'm glad
| he doesn't have that. But I still have some of my student
| textbooks and its interesting to flip through them and see old
| margin notes, and consider what has and hasn't changed over
| thirty years.
| Sunspark wrote:
| Your old textbooks are probably better too. I remember when I
| was taking high school chemistry, the then-current textbooks
| were awful with garish boxes of blocks of colour taking up half
| the page, font changes, screaming blurbs, etc.
|
| I went to a store and bought the previous older edition of the
| textbook which was still the same material but without the fad
| of making everything visually distracting. It is very
| refreshing to just be able to read a normal flat white page
| with normal black, blue and red ink.
| wslh wrote:
| I've found that printing can help a lot in these situations.
| While you can't always print everything, math notes and scratch
| work are still much easier on paper, no digital solution has
| fully replaced that yet! The article is focused on reading, but
| I recall previous discussions on the neurological aspects of
| writing and motor control, where much of our brain is linked to
| muscle control and dexterity [1].
|
| [1] "Effects of Physical Activity on Motor Skills and Cognitive
| Development in Early Childhood: A Systematic Review" (2017)
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1155/2017/2760716
| analog31 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, does the Chromebook have a connector for an
| external display?
|
| But yes, trying to help someone with anything computer related
| when they're on a crappy laptop display is... trying.
| bbstats wrote:
| N=72
| yas_hmaheshwari wrote:
| This is blasphemous
|
| The answer, as is with everything, was N=42
|
| :-)
| Refreijn wrote:
| I find reading texts on a 13 inch (3200x1800, 276 ppi) laptop
| easier to remember than on a 42 inch (3840x2160, 104 ppi)
| monitor. Reading takes more effort as text isn't as clear on the
| big screen.
|
| Been waiting for 42 inch 8k monitors since 2017. There's a 55
| inch IPS on the horizon (ASRock PG558KF).
|
| Does anyone have experience reading text on 8K VA panels like
| Samsung QN700B?
| HPsquared wrote:
| 27 inch 4K screen is a reasonable compromise, I find (163 ppi).
| Display scaling is a must, but same on laptop display. I guess
| a larger screen is like having more pages on your desk at once.
| heinternets wrote:
| I definitely prefer being able to scroll with trackpad and
| keyboard vs physical pages.
|
| I wonder if any followup studies have been done on this.
| Karellen wrote:
| (2012)
| est wrote:
| I believe digital reading could be more benifitial if better
| media were applied. This 2012 study invited "72 tenth graders
| read texts as PDF on a computer screen", which is simply bad.
|
| For example, people spent hours exploring wikipedia, this could
| never be done with physical paper. I often find myself looking
| for Ctrl+F button holding a book. Interactive textbooks were
| posted on HN many times, like you can alter a numerical input and
| see graphs chaning in real time. This helps a lot for kids with
| limited imagination.
|
| These days I can't live without an AI assistant. While reading,
| it's just so convenient just to ask. The AI might be wrong from
| time to time, so keep a critical mind, the AI is immensely
| helpful for foreign-language materials and complex acedemical
| papers.
| jvan wrote:
| >For example, people spent hours exploring wikipedia, this
| could never be done with physical paper.
|
| I must not understand what you're saying here. I'm envisioning
| someone reading an article, seeing a reference to something
| unfamiliar, then stopping to read another article in a nearby
| source about that thing or any other random topic, recursing
| for hours. This is easily done, and often was by children a few
| decades ago, with any encyclopedia set.
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| I've only read the abstract. One thing I would like to read about
| is, if the phenomenon is real what's the mechanism for it. Is it
| that people on screen have the tendency to change tab to look at
| memes every other paragraph? Is it that they associate screens
| with entertainment, and even without acting on it the brain gets
| too lazy? Or what?
| jll29 wrote:
| This study [Mangen, Walgermo and Bronnick (2012)] should be
| replicated with adult subjects and N=500 instead of just N=72
| kids from a single class.
|
| In Sweden, based on similar results sub-notebooks and tables that
| were only recently introduced were removed again. I respect the
| Swedish for reacting on the new evidence instead of being in
| denial that the purchase of so much hardware was a mistake.
|
| I write, read, and review scientific papers throughout the year,
| and most of the time, I will print them out (sometimes over one
| hundred pages for a single conference - e.g. 10 papers a 10
| pages). The clearest benefit is reading mathematical formulae on
| paper vs screen, from my subjective experience, but also the
| ability to scribble notes, turn back the page to re-read
| something to double-check without much effort.
|
| As much as I like computers, paper is the most ingenious medium
| ever invented by humankind, and the second most durable w.r.t.
| long-term preservation of the written word (after parchment).
| deskamess wrote:
| > the ability to scribble notes, turn back the page to re-read
| something to double-check without much effort.
|
| I agree 100%. The simple act of turning back the page/pages is
| so fast and efficient. My brain seems to even remember where on
| the page the info I want is. So much more is visible in a
| single 'eye-shot'. I don't get that same mental experience with
| e-docs - not sure why. I did grow up with paper so there is a
| bias.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I had not thought about the paging-back issue until you
| mentioned it, but I recognize in myself what you have said
| about it. Our brains and sensorimotor systems are developed
| for direct interaction with the physical world, not through
| proxies (though we can get pretty good with decent proxies
| through practice.)
|
| On the other hand, being able to search is invaluable, as is
| the ability to have the footnote pages open in a separate
| window, if the software does not provide a better option.
| Finally, I can't imagine a good interface that is not pencil-
| like for sketching diagrams.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| I agree. For novels, digital works well--I have hundreds of
| books on my Kindle. But recently, while studying a math book,
| I bought the paperback for exactly the reason you mentioned.
| 256_ wrote:
| > paper is the most ingenious medium ever invented by
| humankind, and the second most durable w.r.t. long-term
| preservation of the written word (after parchment).
|
| And clay tablets.
| halgir wrote:
| I agree that for the act of learning, the tactility of paper is
| a huge benefit. But for preserving and recalling notes and
| highlights, electronic wins. I can have hundreds of books or
| papers on whichever device I'm on and look up notes and
| annotations I've made over several years.
|
| I've tried figuring out how to get the best of both worlds, but
| maybe you really just need to decide which trade-off to go
| with.
| groby_b wrote:
| You can come reasonably close by scanning & OCRing your
| notebooks. (And having numbered pages in your notebooks)
|
| It's not great, but it's improving searchability quite a bit.
| peterbonney wrote:
| Plausible result, but considering that this HN post is appearing
| on the same day as one of the top posts is about scientific
| fraud... let's not get ahead of ourselves.
|
| I say it all the time: provocative experimental results should be
| considered fraudulent until the raw data is shared, and then
| spurious until replicated.
| samatman wrote:
| I would put this only slightly differently: experimental
| results should be considered _unpublishable_ without the raw
| data, and _irrelevant_ until replicated.
| simonw wrote:
| In somewhat delicious irony, I find this PDF almost unreadable on
| my iPhone screen due to the tiny font.
|
| Hah: "The students were randomized into two groups, where the
| first group read two texts (1400-2000 words) in print, and the
| other group read the same texts as PDF on a computer screen."
|
| Maybe they should try the experiment again using a non-hostile
| format for presenting information on a computer.
|
| (In case anyone else was wondering about resolution, this 2012
| study used 15" LCDs at 1280x1024 running Windows XP - so
| definitely not retina.)
| wrs wrote:
| It's double ironic because it's not very readable on paper
| either! The line length is way too long. If it were in HTML you
| could fix that.
| red_admiral wrote:
| I'm a book person through and through. Crafting Interpreters is
| an example of how a textbook can be when someone really puts the
| effort in, I know there's also a free PDF version but the paper
| book is well worth the price.
|
| E-readers like the remarkable are getting closer, but that one's
| banned by some of our clients until they hire someone who
| understands security.
| axpy906 wrote:
| Maybe add "2012" to the title as that is when the study was done.
| throwpoaster wrote:
| My kids' tomes don't even have vellum! They use paper! Next
| they'll be printing them with moveable type instead of
| illuminating them.
|
| Kids today!
| drivebycomment wrote:
| I mostly stopped reading paper books, as I do almost all book
| reading through Libby app on my tablet that has a high resolution
| display like most tablets produced in the past few years. It's a
| superior experience than a paper book in almost every way.
|
| At work and home, with 4k monitor, it's so much easier to put
| multiple reading materials side by side and read / research
| across.
|
| In 2012, even on the state of the art computer systems, the
| reading experience wasn't as good as it is now.
| nrvn wrote:
| As someone who spent 6 years at the uni in the first half of
| 2000's having access to the mixture of printed and digital
| materials, and as someone who has to read tons of different
| formal and informal docs on a daily basis, I can firmly say I
| don't care about the results of this study and at least they are
| irrelevant to me. You need to get your tasks done, research and
| learn anything? Use whatever medium is available and fits your
| needs best and allows you to yield better results in a shorter
| timespan.
|
| I won't bother printing some programming language documentation
| and I miss the ability to search through text in printed books.
|
| That being said, printed books smell good, and I enjoy the
| typographic excellence of them every time I grab a real book.
| atum47 wrote:
| I've been reading digital image processing by Gonzalez and I must
| be honest: the sheer thickness of the book makes it very hard to
| handle (especially lying in bed). As others pointed out already,
| I do miss the ability of search the text. Good book though
| imgabe wrote:
| The index is how you're meant to search a paper book.
| dr__mario wrote:
| I would love to know what happens with e-ink devices then. I feel
| this test is doing many things at once and the conclusion may not
| carry to e-ink (it's easier in the eyes, you can scribble...)
| kgbcia wrote:
| What about eink
| joshdavham wrote:
| I feel like I've known this intuitively for years, but have never
| been able to properly explain it to others.
|
| For example, when I was in university (2015-20), all my lecture
| notes were available as pdfs, but I would just always print them
| anyway while the other students would read them on their devices.
| And when I learned French, I only bought physical books and never
| even once tried an e-reader. Paper is just easier to understand!
| mhagiwara wrote:
| Here's a more recent meta analysis: Delgado et al., 2018. Don't
| throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of
| reading media on reading comprehension
| https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X18300...
|
| "Paper-based reading yields better comprehension outcomes than
| digital-based reading."
| User23 wrote:
| A typical textbook gives me around an 11x17 display area with
| better than retina resolution and a refresh limited only by the
| speed of my optic nerve.
|
| That's about the usable area of a 27" monitor after all the UI
| trash has taken its share of space.
|
| And of course, it leaves my monitor free for practicing whatever
| it is I'm trying to learn from the book. Alt tabbing is a
| terrible experience comparatively. Glancing at the text takes the
| time of a saccade and uses visual memory, leaving my short term
| memory free for concepts and working memory.
|
| Obviously get a good book holder that you can stand next to your
| monitor(s).
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