“Books… They transport us to many locations, and we dare not retreat; we beg to go, and clamor to become acquainted with the mysteries held within the binding.”

Since the invention of the PDF and then of the iPad, Kindle, and other E-Reader’s, the debate of which is best- paper versus “books in the cloud” has been going back and forth. I have no dog in this fight, since I simply refuse to be swayed from my opionion that old fashioned paper books are so much better- in so many ways- than a digitized version of the same. In fact, I don’t regard my postition as opinion, I look at it as just another fact of life that some people wish to argue over from the point of view of sheer laziness. 

If YOU are too lazy to physically hold, store, and care for a book- then you might not deserve to read it.

Books are physical objects and they are that way for a good reason. With the exception perhaps of raw data and sales reports, or any other parcels which don’t contain even a modecum of personal flair, a book or story contains a portion of the author. Therefore, that printed word is both physical AND spirtual in nature. It then follows that something like that can only exist… or truly be appreciated… in a medium that is also lifelike and real! 

The cloud is neither lifelife or “real”. Sure, it is THERE, but where really is “THERE”. At best, the Cloud is a figment of imagination, that rests somewhere in the ether, and at a moment’s notice, some glitch in the wiring of the universe might cause an erasure of those contents. POOF! Never to be seen again. 

On the other hand, the REAL hand, a book- especially one which is fashioned in a fine binding with rich paper, is very much a living and existing thing. In the case of emergency, I have a box ready to GO that is full of “important” personal documents, i.e. Birth Certificate, Social Security Card, etc. However, I also have on my top shelf, between two brass bookends, my collection of Steinbeck’s! These are part of my “go bag”, and in my estimation, are irreplaceable. Oh sure, I could buy other copies to replace them if they were to be lost, but the books- MY books- couldn’t be replaced. 

As MY books, my living books; I feel the familiar paper in my hands; I know the creases in pages; I understand that the spine on “East of Eden” is getting fragile- becuase I’ve read that opus probably 30-35 times. And… each time the experience from MY book is different. The tone is different, the ending feels different. 

The same kind of kinship is felt and debated in the music world; and exists between the technologies in recording known as digiatal and analog. The easiest way to explain these differences, in terms of pure sound, is that scratchy; fuzzy; and FULL sound you hear when listening to a song on an  old record album, or even a cassette tape. However, when you might listen to a “re-mastered” version of the  same song on a C.D. or online- the sound and tone will be CRYSTAL clear, the notes absolutely sharp… And yet, there is some loss of the warmth and “realness” of the recording which is no longer present inasmuch that the digital style of the recording process does not involve any physicality of the the musical notes causing some needle to vibrate and etch indentations into a peice of film or vinyl. 

Instead- the music simply flows via bluetooth or wire into the vacuum of space, and is electronically burned into a disk as a computer program. In so doing, the master has preserved a nearly perfect copy of the sound- indeed, everything EXCEPT for the life and blood of the sound… the “feeling” of the song; the effort placed in the notes… these are not heard, at least- if they are heard, they are no longer “felt” in the digital medium. 

But, back to books. There have been numerous studies conducted, and I came across one, included below, which found in 2014 that when using the actual written word (A BOOK) versus a Kindle, that comprehension levels rose dramatically. In short, people immediately understood and remembered more from an old fashioned book than they did from the cloud based and digitized version of the same.

Significant.

Definately something to consider the next time you see a young child glued to an iPad, scrolling through pages; without blinking; and most likely- without understanding. TAKE THE KIDS TO A REAL LIBRARY- let them feel the books; appreciate the books… and read the books.

From The Guardian:

“Readers absorb less on Kindles than on paper, study finds

A new study which found that readers using a Kindle were “significantly” worse than paperback readers at recalling when events occurred in a mystery story is part of major new Europe-wide research looking at the impact of digitisation on the reading experience.

The study, presented in Italy at a conference last month and set to be published as a paper, gave 50 readers the same short story by Elizabeth George to read. Half read the 28-page story on a Kindle, and half in a paperback, with readers then tested on aspects of the story including objects, characters and settings.

Anne Mangen of Norway’s Stavanger University, a lead researcher on the study, thought academics might “find differences in the immersion facilitated by the device, in emotional responses” to the story. Her predictions were based on an earlier study comparing reading an upsetting short story on paper and on iPad. “In this study, we found that paper readers did report higher on measures having to do with empathy and transportation and immersion, and narrative coherence, than iPad readers,” said Mangen  >But instead, the performance was largely similar, except when it came to the timing of events in the story. “The Kindle readers performed significantly worse on the plot reconstruction measure, ie, when they were asked to place 14 events in the correct order.”

The researchers suggest that “the haptic and tactile feedback of a Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story as a print pocket book does”.

“When you read on paper you can sense with your fingers a pile of pages on the left growing, and shrinking on the right,” said Mangen. “You have the tactile sense of progress, in addition to the visual … [The differences for Kindle readers] might have something to do with the fact that the fixity of a text on paper, and this very gradual unfolding of paper as you progress through a story, is some kind of sensory offload, supporting the visual sense of progress when you’re reading. Perhaps this somehow aids the reader, providing more fixity and solidity to the reader’s sense of unfolding and progress of the text, and hence the story.”Advertisment 

Mangen also pointed to a paper published last year, which gave 72 Norwegian 10th-graders texts to read in print, or in PDF on a computer screen, followed by comprehension tests. She and her fellow researchers found that “students who read texts in print scored significantly better on the reading comprehension test than students who read the texts digitally”.

She is now chairing a new European research network doing empirical research on the effects of digitisation on text reading. The network says that “research shows that the amount of time spent reading long-form texts is in decline, and due to digitisation, reading is becoming more intermittent and fragmented”, with “empirical evidence indicat[ing] that affordances of screen devices might negatively impact cognitive and emotional aspects of reading”. They hope their work will improve scientific understanding of the implications of digitisation, thus helping to cope with its impact.

“We need to provide research and evidence-based knowledge to publishers on what kind of devices (iPad, Kindle, print) should be used for what kind of content; what kinds of texts are likely to be less hampered by being read digitally, and which might require the support of paper,” said Mangen. “I’m thinking it might make a difference if a novel is a page-turner or light read, when you don’t necessarily have to pay attention to every word, compared to a 500-page, more complex literary novel, something like Ulysses, which is challenging reading that really requires sustained focus. That will be very interesting to explore.”

The Elizabeth George study included only two experienced Kindle users, and she is keen to replicate it using a greater proportion of Kindle regulars. But she warned against assuming that the “digital natives” of today would perform better.

“I don’t think we should assume it is all to do with habits, and base decisions to replace print textbooks with iPads, for instance, on such assumptions. Studies with students, for instance, have shown that they often prefer to read on paper,” she said.”

~ Jim Steele