Do we need a new word for "reading" on screens since it is a very different animal?

[danbloom]

Btw, in the current issue of Technology Review, from MIT, the following very brief letter to the editor appears in the Nov-Dec issue: titled [The Way We Read Now]


One reader -- Danny Bloom in Taiwan -- was intrigued by the potential of a new pressure-sensitive touch screen ("A Touch of Ingenuity," September/October 2009) that could be used in a wide variety of applications, including e-reader screens. He wrote in:


I wonder if in the future we might need a new word to differentiate the kind of reading we do on computer or e-reader screens from the kind of reading we do on paper surfaces. I have heard a few new terms being bandied about on the Internet: screen-reading, browsing, skimming, scanning, even "diging." Reading is reading, of course. But we might not be "reading" the new-and-improved newspapers and magazines of the future. We might be "screening" them.

www.technologyreview.com

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by danbloom

I'm on fire, what can I say? Blame Steve Jordan, he indirectly led me to this forum this morning. It's midnight here already.

And I like this forum, I like all your comments here. You are learning me, pro and con!

The people here are good, and generally intelligent. That is why I stick around. I mostly came to just read up before making a choice on readers, but that was months ago. It is nice to come to a place with smart and mature people for a change.

[danbloom]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

The people here are good, and generally intelligent. That is why I stick around. I mostly came to just read up before making a choice on readers, but that was months ago. It is nice to come to a place with smart and mature people for a change.

I feel the same way about this forum as you do, Hellmark. I plan to stick around too. I like intelligent and mature people chatting about things of interest, and I don't mind people disagreeing with me. That's what life is all about. If everyone here said "agree agree agree" ....it would be boring. I like the give and take of intelligent and mature people. Glad to be aboard. And big thanks for Steve Jordan for indirectly dragging me over here this morning. This is one of the best forums I have ever participated in. I like the feedback, pro and con. That's what i came here for.....

[LDBoblo]

I like "reading" for linear and/or detailed absorption of text. I think "viewing" works well when used to describe more superficial or dynamic means of consumption, including multimedia.

There is no real benefit to a specialized term. It is not just unnecessary, it's likely counterproductive.

[laurele]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

"Agenda" might not be the right word. But there isn't a word (that I know of) for "weird obsession about something that nobody else cares about that you will without doubt fail at but that you go on and on and on about oblivious to the fact that people at best think you are oddly eccentric and at worst think you are a nut."

I propose that we coin for that the word "Laureling," in honor of Laurel Kornfeld, who quickly shows up in every forum on the web that mentions "Pluto" and "planet" to give long rants about how no longer calling Pluto a planet is one of the worst crimes in the history of history.

Hi, Laurel! (She'll likely be posting in this thread as soon as this shows up in Google searches.)

Hello, ardeegee. Considering the accuracy of your crystal ball regarding my showing up here, you might want to consider a career as a psychic!

You've coined a verb in my name! If I go down in history, it will be due to your efforts. I'm genuinely flattered.

Most people post on Internet forums anonymously. I post under my own name when I write on something about which I feel strongly. Why hide behind anonymity? If a person believes strongly enough in his or her convictions, he or she should be willing to put his or her name behind them.

If you consider me a "nut," then you have to say the same thing about Mike Brown, who calls himself "Plutokiller" and posts all over the Internet about how he "killed" Pluto, drove the nails into its coffin, etc. You also have to say the same thing about the leadership of the IAU, that, in an age of rapid astronomical discoveries, is obsessed with suppressing all debate on what a planet is and clings to a controversial definition with which no one is happy.

I am an amateur astronomer and astronomy student with a special interest in the solar system, so yes, this is a concern for me. The fact that some people have become this annoyed by my opposition to the IAU planet definition, which makes no linguistic or scientific sense, says to me that my arguments are being heard and are making some people (supporters of the IAU demotion) very unhappy. To that extent, I am proud to be making a difference ("undoubtedly fail" to get the planet debate reopened? Given the many positive responses to my efforts and similar efforts by many professional astronomers, I think NOT)!

And if no one else cares about Pluto, why are so many people discussing it on the Internet? Why are books about Pluto making the bestseller lists?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by danbloom

dmikov, the anger and fury here is telling. I have no idea where it is coming from. If you had read all my earlier comments, you would have seen that from the very beginning I predicted that out of 100 commenters, 98 would be negative and two would be positive. We still have some time to go before those two people surface....

Which leads me to the conclusion that you KNOW you shouldn't have posted it or intentionally posted it to raise a stink. I think that's the definition of a troll if you want a word for it. The follow-on behavior ("the agenda") pretty much seals it.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Which leads me to the conclusion that you KNOW you shouldn't have posted it or intentionally posted it to raise a stink. I think that's the definition of a troll if you want a word for it. The follow-on behavior ("the agenda") pretty much seals it.

[badbob001]

Originally Posted by danbloom

But I do feel that a new word is coming down the information/digital/bloggy highway, and I have no idea when it will arrive or how, or whether it will arrive alive and kicking -- or perhaps stillborn -- I have no idea. But I got a feeling. That's all.

Inventing words for what may or may not happen... that is what many science fiction writers struggle through. Who knows, perhaps in the distant future, today's 'beam me up' and 'warp speed' may be good enough for our future society after all. Then again, filing a patent for a matter teleportation device with no scientific basis is a bit silly. Isn't it a bit early for you to be fishing for a word, from the community, for something that you've only convinced yourself of existing?

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by danbloom

I can try. I feel that if there was a new word or term for e-reading or screen-reading, then scholars and neuroscientists studying these issues could get a better handle on what and how they report their findings. The new word is not for the general public. We don't need a new word for reading on screens, you are right and I agree. I feel there is a need to differentiate the two kinds of reading -- paper vs screen -- only for scholars and researchers studying the differences. That's all.

NOW what do you think?

I think there is not a whit of difference between the two. You are absorbing the written word.

But thats just me, I have no scientific background to base that on. Just a lifetime of reading books, and 1 1/2 yrs of reading on an e-ink screen.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by laurele

If you consider me a "nut," then you have to say the same thing about Mike Brown, who calls himself "Plutokiller...."

If you're going to try and drag a forum dedicated to eBooks into a "Pluto is/is not a planet" debate, then I'd say you are nuts. I'd call Mike nuts too if he did the same thing. It isn't a mutually exclusive thing, ya know.

[Xenophon]

Need a new word? <Yawn> Nope. It's a non-issue. <yawn>

Xenophon

[Good Old Neon]

First, I pretty much loath the suggestion that reading on an e-reader requires a word other than "reading."

From The Frontal Cortex, Jonah Lehrer’s (always awesome) blog:

Reading, E-Books and the Brain

The New York Times wonders if E-Books are inherently less pleasing for the brain that ink on a page. They canvass a diverse group of experts, most of whom focus on the nature of attention during the reading process. They see old-fashioned printed books as a distraction-free medium, stark and pure and elemental. Here, for instance, is Maryanne Wolf, a neuroscientist at Tufts and author of the excellent Proust and the Squid:

I have no doubt that the new mediums [like E-Books] will accomplish many of the goals we have for the reading brain, particularly the motivation to learn to decode, read and experience the knowledge that is available. As a cognitive neuroscientist, however, I believe we need rigorous research about whether the reading circuit of our youngest members will be short-circuited, figuratively and physiologically.

For my greatest concern is that the young brain will never have the time (in milliseconds or in hours or in years) to learn to go deeper into the text after the first decoding, but rather will be pulled by the medium to ever more distracting information, sidebars, and now,perhaps, videos (in the new vooks).

Like Wolf, I'm mildly concerned that we're slowly losing the talent for long-form immersion. I struggled through a Tolstoy epic a few months ago, and though I finished the book - after falling asleep to the same page for several weeks - I couldn't help but get frustrated at all the digressions and interruptions. I'm ashamed of my impatience, but in a world oversaturated with information I wonder if it's increasingly hard to savor the languid process of reading a really long book. Our attention is a scarce resource, and there's more competition for that resource than ever before.

That said, I don't worry too much about the effect of E-Books on the reading brain. I think one of the most interesting findings regarding literacy and the human cortex is the fact that there are actually two distinct pathways activated by the sight of letters. (The brain is stuffed full of redundancies.) As the lab of Stanislas Dehaene has found, when people are reading "routinized, familiar passages" a part of the brain known as the visual word form area (VWFA, or the ventral pathway) is activated. This pathway processes letters and words in parallel, allowing us to read quickly and effortlessly. It's the pathway that literate readers almost always rely upon.

But Dehaene and colleagues have also found a second reading pathway in the brain, which is activated when we're reading prose that is "unfamiliar". (The scientists trigger this effect in a variety of ways, such as rotating the letters, or using a hard to read font, or filling the prose with obscure words.) As expected, when the words were more degraded or unusual, subjects took longer to comprehend them. By studying this process in an fMRI machine, Dehaene could see why: reading text that was highly degraded or presented in an unusual fashion meant that we relied on a completely different neural route, known as the dorsal reading pathway. Although scientists had previously assumed that the dorsal route ceased to be active once we learned how to read, Deheane's research demonstrates that even literate adults still rely, in some situations, on the same patterns of brain activity as a first-grader, carefully sounding out the syllables.

What does this have to do with E-Books? This research suggests that the act of reading observes a gradient of fluency. Familiar sentences printed in Helvetica activate the ventral route, while difficult prose filled with jargon and fancy words and printed in an illegible font require us to use the slow dorsal route. Here's my rampant speculation (and it's pure speculation because no one has brought a Kindle into a scanner): new reading formats (such as computer screens or E-Books) might initially require a bit more dorsal processing, as our visual cortex adjusts to the image. (One has to remember that printed books have been evolving to fit the peculiar sensory habits of the brain for hundreds of years - they're a pretty perfect cultural product.) But then, after a few years, the technology is tweaked and our brain adjusts and the new reading format is read with the same ventral fluency as words on a page.

The larger point is that most complaints about E-Books and Kindle apps boil down to a single problem: they don't feel as "effortless" or "automatic" as old-fashioned books. But here's the wonderful thing about the human brain: give it a little time and practice and it can make just about anything automatic. We excel at developing new habits. Before long, digital ink will feel just as easy as actual ink.

the link (with a link to the NYT's article) - http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/..._the_brain.php

[Daithi]

YES!! Definately need a new word for reading on electronic devices.

More importantly, we need a new word for reading cereal boxes. People have been reading cereal boxes at the breakfast table for decades now, but without a word that differentiates this type of reading from the reading of standard material. A new word for reading on cereal boxes is badly needed.

Imagine a mother that wants to tell a child to stop reading the cereal box and pay attention to her. The problem is that the mother doesn't want to discourage her child from reading in general. If reading from cereal boxes had its own word, the mother could say something like, "Stop 'cerealizing' and pay attention." This new word would allow the mother to ask the child to stop reading without applying a negative connotation to reading in general.

However, the term 'cerealizing', used in the above example, may not be optimal as it may be confused with 'serializing', which implies a series of things. Further thought needs to be given to this pressing issue.

[kennyc]

Yes, I agree and particularly if we wanted to study the behavior and stop cereal killers!

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Daithi

YES!! Definately need a new word for reading on electronic devices.

More importantly, we need a new word for reading cereal boxes. People have been reading cereal boxes at the breakfast table for decades now, but without a word that differentiates this type of reading from the reading of standard material. A new word for reading on cereal boxes is badly needed.

Imagine a mother that wants to tell a child to stop reading the cereal box and pay attention to her. The problem is that the mother doesn't want to discourage her child from reading in general. If reading from cereal boxes had its own word, the mother could say something like, "Stop 'cerealizing' and pay attention." This new word would allow the mother to ask the child to stop reading without applying a negative connotation to reading in general.

However, the term 'cerealizing', used in the above example, may not be optimal as it may be confused with 'serializing', which implies a series of things. Further thought needs to be given to this pressing issue.

Good idea but I have better suggestion for the word: I suggest floconing from the French "flocons de mais" which means cornflakes.

(The impetus for the name comes from the fact that in Canada all cereal boxes are printed in English on one side and French on the other. Thus English-speaking parents would see the French side of the cereal box when their child was floconing instead of paying attention to his or her mother.)