from the New York Times the other day.
I read a novel this summer on my iPad, and when I was finished, I wanted to hold the book in my hand. I need to be able to flip pages. When I can't, something pretty important to me as a reader is lost.
Other books don't inspire me to flip pages. Maybe if there is no plot line that necessarily have those temporal elements, it doesn't matter.
That was an interesting article that I very much enjoyed. It seem logical to me that if somebody closes a paper book and looks at their bookmark and sees that a certain event happened however far in the book, they may have a better perception of when events happened than the people who read on tablets.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why but I just cannot concentrate with reading Kindles. I just need to have a book in hand when I read.
ReplyDeleteThe article was engrossing and makes a logical statement. When you read a Kindle, you can't tell how far you're in the book unless you tap on the screen which is an intrusive act that places you out of the story. With a book, you can tell how close you are to the end of the story just from the pages flipping rampantly.
This was a really interesting article. I never thought about how reading a book on a Kindle can affect our understanding of a sequence of events. It would be cool to do the same experiment, but with one group listening to an audio book and another reading a paper copy of the book. I think that sequencing of events would be confused by the audio book readers (as with the ebook), but what else may be lost in the transition from reading to listening?
ReplyDeleteI like your idea for the new study, Kaila. This summer I had to read a book for AP Biology. Rather than actually read the book I listened to it on my Kindle because I had never used this feature before and was very curious. When I had to do the report, I completely forgot the order in which things happened. I reread it without the audio and not only did the order become clearer, but I realized I had misinterpreted some of the book. It was hard to follow the audio and actually understand what the author was saying because the audio was so expressionless. I find it easier to make a connection with what the author is saying when I read it myself.
DeleteI wished that the article would have had more studies and research completed. However, I do understand that topic is fairly new and slowly but surely we will get more information. I am currently reading all of the books assigned as Ebooks on my laptop. I personally prefer reading on a screen because I can't accurately imagine how much I have left to read which is great because it doesn't mentally exhaust me. Also, I find myself getting dizzier reading from print rather than online books.
ReplyDeleteThe found the article really intriguing, and it made me question why I prefer reading through electronic devices more than I do on pages. To me, I feel that reading off of something like an iPhone or a Kindle is just too convenient to overlook. You have an entire library with you wherever you bring the device, and in the case of an iPhone, I would have a collection of books all the time (since it also functions as my phone). Plus, it's nice to be able to read a book in the dark without the use of pesky book lights and their battery life.
ReplyDeleteThe article was very intriguing. It's interesting how reading on a screen mainly affects the sequence of events. I have to say though, I agree with Patricia. I wish they would have researched completely. At the end of the article they mention that "She added that the type of text, the device used, and the background experience of the reader could all influence the outcome." I believe these factors should have been explored before the study was conducted. However, the lack of page numbers on the Kindle has the opposite effect on me. Without seeing the pages, I feel like I've been reading forever and I don't really feel compelled to continue reading. Like Ms. Fletcher I feel the need to flip pages. If I would've read the summer books on my Kindle I'm pretty sure I would've skimmed through it because for some reason when I read something on a screen, I feel like it's fine to skim through. I think this is a habit I picked up on the internet.
ReplyDeleteThis is something I have had to deal with as I finish these books up on the Kindle. These are my first books to read on the Kindle and it's so strange to not be able to see the page number, or flip back to a chapter that first introduced a topic. Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, but I find touchscreen devices a bit inconvenient for me, especially with my long fingernails. I like to type on a computer, to push buttons that are completely physical. I remember when I first got a Wii, the first game console I've owned besides the computer. I was so intrigued that I had to go to the menu, then hold down the button on the actual device. I couldn't click on a "shut down" button on the screen. It was so strange to me to just watch the screen click off without a warning or a shut down sequence. Perhaps it isn't how old-fashioned you are, but maybe it's your personality or your lifestyle. I like to have everything laid out in front of me. Maybe you do too.
ReplyDeleteI have never read a book on a kindle or e-reader in general, but I can relate. I personally love reading the news from a newspaper, but when I do not have the time to get one, I have to settle for the internet. For some reason I just do not find the news interesting through a computer screen or my phone screen. However, that article is quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteI've spent a lot of time searching for a quote in The Shallows that I thought pertains to this and almost gave up. But Eureka, I have found it. In chapter four, Carr says that "Finding a particular passage, an awkward task with a long roll of text, became a simple matter of flipping back and forth through a set of pages." A screen displays just as parchment does- continuously, breaking only for paragraphs or a new topic. It makes me wonder if those students were to test with a piece of parchment, what their test scores would be. It's easy to look at a book and estimate where you are by how many pages are in front or behind you. Finding a lost place in a paper novel is a simple matter of remembering what section of the book you were in, how many ,more pages were on the left side than the right. In a "long roll of text", it becomes far more complicated.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I'm not one to read ebooks because I feel it takes away from my experience of reading an actual book. When I think of reading, I think of laying down with a paper or hardback book, and just relaxing and entering another world for a time. Moreover because most electronics that allow you to read books on it also have Internet connection, I probably wouldn't read for very long before a notification from social media distracts me and I've left the ebook. So having a real book is the way to go for me.
ReplyDeleteI found it odd that the article mentioned the medium not affecting the students' ability to comprehend the story because both Carr and Postman emphasized the fact that the medium does matter and definitely affects the reader. Also, I do believe the fact that the kids who read the ebooks had a harder time placing events in the story because that happens to me too, Everything just blurs together and even though I know what happened, I don't know when it happened. Overall, I do prefer traditional books over ebooks just because I'm more used to them and reading books on electronics hurts my head. Thanks for sharing the article!
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