Report: Readers absorb less on Kindles than on Paper

[Barty]

I do think pbook have some advantageous characteristics. Easier to flip back and forth through pages. You build a mental map of where certain things are and you can flip to them by feel and visual scanning. E-readers have bookmarks and search that are more precise yet at the same time not necessarily as quick and intuitive. Also pbook have richer formatting and show more on a page that what you get on a 6in reader or tablet. You get more context. As someone said up thread, sometimes when I pick my kindle I don't know what I'm reading for a few seconds. Have to tap to bring up the title.

All these don't matter so much with novels, at least not the difficult ones. But for textbooks, paper is still generally better for me. Oh, and pdfs , still used for complex formatting, are an abomination.

There was an earlier study that showed that reading with an ugly or difficult font actually aided comprehension, possibly because you have to concentrate more. I think maybe the relative ease of reading linear narrative text broken into smaller chunks to fit on an e-reader screen, with font face and size of your choice, lets you glide over the text and lulls you into thinking you are absorbing more than you are. It's like listening to a skilled speaker can fool you into believing they are making a coherent argument even if they're just spouting gibberish.

[sirmaru]

When I read history eBooks on my Kindles, I can save everything important to me here:

https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights

When I used pBooks I saved NOTHING anywhere.

[DiapDealer]

I think everyone is different and that there are no absolutes. And that the potential for retention/absorption is exactly the same regardless of the medium.

[mandy314]

EBooks aren't for remembering. Terms Of Use surely prohibit that, don't they? All this retention and absorption amount to copying the content and that is piracy and illegal

[cromag]

My preferred genres are Science Fiction and Mysteries. I have no trouble remembering details, the chronological order of events, etc.

But, then, I don't have a "Kindle."

[Barcey]

It doesn't strike me as a scientific study. Fifty people isn't a very large sample and I don't understand the rational of breaking them into two groups of 25. Why not have two stories and two series of tests and then have all participants read and test on paper and then all read and test on eink? I would expect that to be a more logical methodology and reproducible for scientific validation.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Anthem

Just like when people called video games "Nintendo" for the longest time.

Or people saying "iPad" for all tablets.

Originally Posted by Anthem

I'm sure we lost something special when we moved away from Scrolls and towards the Codex format as well. "You don't get the profound sense of new words Unrolling before thee!"

Originally Posted by mandy314

EBooks aren't for remembering. Terms Of Use surely prohibit that, don't they? All this retention and absorption amount to copying the content and that is piracy and illegal

Reminds me of an article that was just on Techdirt a couple of days ago, "Licensing Boards Think Studying For A Test Is Copyright Infringement, Forbid Memorization Of Material":

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...material.shtml

Or all of those articles about professors which make students destroy their notes at the end of the year:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...07136420.shtml

Stop copying/stealing/learning ideas. You just can't make this stuff up!

[crich70]

Likewise some people still call all photocopies a xerox and all inline skates rollerblades. Neither of which is true of course. both are brand names of products.

[wodin]

Would I be cynical if I thought "follow the money"? Who would be the biggest benefactors of such a study?

[wodin]

Originally Posted by soulfuldog

Hey, that's what I've got. I keep forgetting the medical term for it...

Isn't the medical term for that Can't Remember Stuff (CRS)?

[twowheels]

Here's a link to the paper:

https://www.academia.edu/7868162/Man...aly_July_21-25

I was curious whether Kindle w/ eink or Kindle Fire. Seems it was eInk from the abstract. Unfortunately the site requires you to register to download (forget that) and it's in docx format. [Which backward academic fields publish in MS Word format?!?!?!!?]

[crich70]

Originally Posted by twowheels

Here's a link to the paper:

https://www.academia.edu/7868162/Man...aly_July_21-25

I was curious whether Kindle w/ eink or Kindle Fire. Seems it was eInk from the abstract. Unfortunately the site requires you to register to download (forget that) and it's in docx format. [Which backward academic fields publish in MS Word format?!?!?!!?]

Probably the ones who give you alphabet soup after you name even if you don't know what you're talking about afterward.

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by Barty

I do think pbook have some advantageous characteristics. Easier to flip back and forth through pages. You build a mental map of where certain things are and you can flip to them by feel and visual scanning.

I think the (geographical page) mental map is hugely important for some of us, not just for finding where things are, but because building it acts as another memory aid.

From reading others' comments, it seems like this memory-aid aspect of the mental map creation works just for some, possibly a small minority. For me, when I recall passages of pbooks, I can usually visualize where on the page those passages can be found. I don't seem to recall passages as well when reading ebooks.

My guess is that the mental maps are particularly formed when picking up from where I left off (I'm a slow reader, probably doing a lot of daydreaming and restarting), and when re-reading/re-scanning the page. Doing the same tasks in ebooks feels slightly disorienting because I don't know where to look on the page. This disorientation may be simply due to expectations from years of reading pbooks. But so far, it's resulted in me seemingly (can't be sure) remembering less of what I read in ebooks.

I'm currently re-reading "The Sports Gene," but this time in ebook form, and it's very disorienting that I can't find the passages where they were, but instead they're just floating up sequentially on my screen.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by jj2me

I think the (geographical page) mental map is hugely important for some of us, not just for finding where things are, but because building it acts as another memory aid.

I agree. My brain got used to a certain way of reading growing up and in all the years since, and it hasn't adjusted after only a handful of years with an e-reader. I expect that kids nowadays growing up with e-books will be different in how their brains learn to remember.

I very much recall by location on a page, approximate number of pages into the book, etc. I don't get that on a screen; it just all runs together.

Another issue may be that we now have so many crutches to use that we don't need to develop memory as much.

[tompe]

I agree about using position on page to help memory. I find the suggestion in the paper not surprising at all. It is very plausible.