Friday 19 April 2013

Reading Options - What Works Best?

Evidence from laboratory experiments, polls and consumer reports indicates that modern screens and e-readers fail to adequately recreate certain tactile experiences of reading on paper that many people miss and, more importantly, prevent people from navigating long texts in an intuitive and satisfying way.

In turn, such navigational difficulties may subtly inhibit reading comprehension. Compared with paper, screens may also drain more of our mental resources while we are reading and make it a little harder to remember what we read when we are done.

A parallel line of research focuses on people's attitudes toward different kinds of media.

Whether they realize it or not, many people approach computers and tablets with a state of mind less conducive to learning than the one they bring to paper.

There are a lot more studies on line, and many comments.

What do you use and why?

 
 

1 comment:

swenglishexpat said...

Interesting. Apart from my computer screen and the odd text msg on my old mobile phone, I do not use any of the other reading gadgets. If and when there is a pan-European mobile network I might get a smartphone, but I have no need for one in my current situation, living in Germany with frequent visits to Sweden and France. Instead I use different sim cards.