Do E-Books Make It Harder to Remember What You Just Read?

[Katsunami]

It seems I'm forgetting details within books much faster than about 10-15 years ago.

Back then, I could remeber about anything I read only once for months on end; now I'm having trouble remembering details of books I read a few weeks ago. I don't think this has to do with e-reading, because the same is happening with regard to movies, or music.

To be honest, I find it disconcerting. I'm used to reading or hearing something once, and then remembering it for months or even years, and it seems this is becoming more difficult. I could understand that had I been 78, but I'm barely into my 30's.

[pidgeon92]

Ebooks. Paper books. Movies. The medium doesn't matter. I forget everything.

[spear]

I keep forgetting recent events more and more....(please let it be my current medical issues) and at work I both electronically file and paper file. It used to be fine but now I have so many overlapping categories (should a blank form about threatened and endangered species go into into my form folder or my report folder, or my natural resource folder (sometimes I stash copies in all possible folders). Sometimes the important (and long) stuff absolutely needs to printed out and put into a special to do tray. Especially items with long directions, I do find it easier to scatter/scan and basically pick out what I need in paper form. The rest gets shredded and recycled or cut up to use as scratch sheets (memory going, got to keep constant notes.

Partly I think that I work both electronically and by paper because I am Gen-X (a really old Gen-X, they used to call us "Baby Busters"). The first time I dealt with computers was in a lab as a senior in High School learning basic on an Apple 2e. So with me it just depends.

However my experience might not be very applicable. When I e-read its usually for entertainment either fiction or non-fiction informative stuff having nothing to do with with work. The e-reader is a convenience and great on the road, however unlike many on here, I don't build e-libraries or even really try to save the files forever. So I am a luddite compared to many on here.

I guess in the end I am neutral, the answer depends on what your remembering, why, and how your have developed study habits and such over time.

However I can say with certainty that taking Ambien and reading (any format) don't work....black hole next day. I have had to go back and read entire chapters after reading after Ambien. So now I put all materials away if I have to take that stuff. Yes a bit OT but its still memory and reading

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It seems I'm forgetting details within books much faster than about 10-15 years ago.

Back then, I could remeber about anything I read only once for months on end; now I'm having trouble remembering details of books I read a few weeks ago. I don't think this has to do with e-reading, because the same is happening with regard to movies, or music.

To be honest, I find it disconcerting. I'm used to reading or hearing something once, and then remembering it for months or even years, and it seems this is becoming more difficult. I could understand that had I been 78, but I'm barely into my 30's.

I'm guessing information overload. When I started programming I could remember almost everything about a program. They were written in COBOL that only has about 70 pre-defined words & the rest are user-defined. Average program length was probably 1000 lines of code.

The last program I worked on was in Visual Basic .Net which, including the add-in tools that are pretty much needed to do anything with it, has over 1000 pre-defined terms. The 'program' was actually an inter-linked system of 1200 programs containing almost a million lines of code. No way could I remember that so I learned to write documentation to help me.

I still do that today, write 'documentation' to help me remember what I want to remember. Basically I've found that the older I get the more stuff there is that I want to remember and the more stuff I want to remember the harder it is to remember it all. Less important things (like details about books I've finished reading) get dropped unless I write something down to remind me. That's one of the reasons I love Calibre-I list my pbooks in it too & keep them listed even after I get rid of them. And I make sure they comments include a synopsis that reminds me of what the book was about.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by jj2me

How about with an open mind?

Seems a stretch to think that all scientific discovery came from doubt.

Doubt is how you keep your mind open.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

I'm guessing information overload. When I started programming I could remember almost everything about a program. They were written in COBOL that only has about 70 pre-defined words...

You could be right. When I learned C (in the beginning of the 90's) it was just 51 keywords, and a small standard library; Pascal was not much bigger. Nowadays, one does not only need to learn the keywords, but also (third party) libraries that have a megabazillion classes and functions.

And it's different for each language and framework. Not to mention all the other things used for software development (source control repository, IDE's, testing environments...)

I've actually stopped learning and remembering that stuff, because it's of no use; it's old in just a few years (or faster...), and then it often falls out of use. If I need it, I just look it up.

The same goes for basically everything: If there is no need to have something available as "instant knowledge at all times", I don't even bother remembering it. Maybe that's the reason why remembering books and movies and other things is also becoming harder. Maybe we (people) are not training ourselves to remember things anymore; we're training ourselves how to find what we need as fast as possible at the moment we need it.

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Doubt is how you keep your mind open.

Doubt is in the behavioral realm.

One can also make discoveries by following where your research takes you (with an open mind).

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by jj2me

Doubt is in the behavioral realm.

One can also make discoveries by following where your research takes you (with an open mind).

I note that you're not being absolute about it - "also." I say keep the mind open, but be ready to doubt everything that gets in there. Also doubt what looks true to keep the mind open to what might be obscured by it. I don't think being doubtful is the same as being closed.

[Genre fan]

Regarding learning via paper vs electronic devices and age of the individual, here's an abstract from Ergonomics in 2011, an article by Robert Ball & Juan Pablo Hourcade (the underlined part is my emphasis):

"The human–computer interaction research community has long been interested in the role of age in the use of computing devices. The current availability of large high-resolution displays and a growing community of older adults who use computers on a regular basis are examples of a changing landscape of users and devices that calls for a reevaluation of what we know about age and computers. This article presents two studies comparing the performance of young and older adults in reading tasks. In our studies, older adults outperformed young adults in terms of reading times and reading comprehension regardless of medium (paper or computer display). In addition, the overlap of confidence intervals for reading times and comprehension by medium suggests participants performed equally well regardless of medium. Both findings are in contrast to results from similar studies from the 1980s and 1990s."
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...9#.UrJWQY1VK_4

Looks like a very interesting journal. I may wander off to the library and check our some of the back issues just for fun.

May I point out that the research by Kate Garland, quoted in the linked article provided in the first post on this thread, is >5 years old, published in a journal called Ergonomics in 2008, which means the data was collected well prior to that before being analyzed and written up and peer-reviewed before actually being published. The focus of the research was assessing the interface of a person using a computer (monitors with backlit screens! keyboards!, desks and chairs!) for learning and testing vs textbooks and paper testing, and it was compared to other research done in 1992.

The linked article makes it sound as though the research was done with ereaders, which it was not, plus it was done prior to the more popular use of ereaders. It was prior to the first release of kindle and Nook readers into the market place, and prior to the first iPhone and iPad releases that made smart devices and tablets everyday items instead of just by and for techies. There were certainly ereaders available prior to 2008, but they were not something you'd see people using in an airport if you glanced around in 2005-2007 when the study was done.

The intent of Ms. Garland's research was not to see how the average person might retain information obtained from an ereader vs a print book. These were psychology students given information on computers then were pressed to answer questions about the material on computer. They were compared to psychology students who got the same material on paper and were tested using paper testing methods. The question had more to do with how valid testing on a computer was compared to testing on paper, pointing out that one should not assume that there is equivalency between the interfaces of computers and paper.

I think if that same research was done using current e-ink devices or tablets, which can be held as comfortably as (often more comfortably than!) a book, the inference by that journalist would not be that ereading is adverse to learning. Testing is another question altogether, though.

As for me, I got some hardback books from the library recently that made me feel like my thumbs were going to bust from holding them! I was so happy to get back to my lightweight PRS-350!

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I note that you're not being absolute about it - "also." I say keep the mind open, but be ready to doubt everything that gets in there. Also doubt what looks true to keep the mind open to what might be obscured by it. I don't think being doubtful is the same as being closed.

Agreed.

(Though I doubt it.)

[shalym]

For me, what I remember makes no difference whether it's electronic or paper. If I'm reading (good) fiction, I remember because I'm experiencing the story. If I'm reading bad fiction, I don't remember as well. If I'm studying something that isn't really of interest to me, I will never remember it unless I also take notes as I'm reading it.

For me, where something is on a page or it's physical location in a book has always been meaningless--it's where it happens in the story that matters.

Note that all of this data pertains to me, only, and I would never assume that other people are the same way...which leads to my next statement that studies such as these are utterly useless, since all it proves is that everybody learns differently...which we already know.

Shari

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by crich70

We think that it's easier to work with paper pages because we've had some 400 + years of using that media.

Personally, I've had a bit less than 50 years using paper books!

[HarryT]

I read something in a totally different way if I'm reading to learn, rather than reading to enjoy. I'm doing a part-time degree in Egyptology, which involves a lot of academic research, and reading a great many books and journal articles. I read the journal articles on my iPad and have no problem at all in retaining the information gathered.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Personally, I've had a bit less than 50 years using paper books!

First, you send me a PM signed with a male name. Now, it seems you're only around 50 years old. Could you please stop contorting the image I have created on the basis of your avatar? It's very disturbing to know I was so far off the mark.

Thanks in advance.

Spoiler:

Until recently I thought you were female, and around 65, maybe 70.

Please don't ban me. Change your avatar instead

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

First, you send me a PM signed with a male name. Now, it seems you're only around 50 years old. Could you please stop contorting the image I have created on the basis of your avatar? It's very disturbing to know I was so far off the mark.

Well, based on my Avatar I must be about 700 years old which is the real age of the moveable type printing press which launched the Book industry. 1453 is a lot further back than 400 years. And eBooks are now about 40 years old dating back to the '70s.

Dale