Research Suggests E-Readers Are "Too Easy" To Read 185
New research suggests that the clear screens and easily read fonts of e-readers makes your brain "lazy." According to Neuroscience blogger Jonah Lehrer, using electronic books like the Kindle and Sony Reader makes you less likely to remember what you have read because the devices are so easy on the eyes. From the article: "Rather than making things clearer, e-readers and computers prevent us from absorbing information because their crisp screens and fonts tell our subconscious that the words they convey are not important, it is claimed. In contrast, handwriting and fonts that are more challenging to read signal to the brain that the content of the message is important and worth remembering, experts say."
This is... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is quite possibly one of the stupidest things I have ever read. I'm regretting not reading it on my Kindle, so I could forget it quicker.
Re:This is... (Score:4, Funny)
I just use my scratched pair of glasses when I read it. problem solved.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Kindle does text-to-speech (if the publisher allows it). It's pretty awful. All hail our robotic overlords...
Re:This is... (Score:4, Funny)
I think it's cool, if I read physics text, it feels like Stephen Hawking is giving me a lecture.
Re:This is... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
And don't forget Caps Lock.
Re:This is... (Score:4, Funny)
My high-resolution display and crisp, anti-aliased fonts tell me your opinion is irrelevant.
Re:This is... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And funny enough the research shows that physical books that are even easier to read tend to be more persistant in memory. Maybe you are confusing the ease of understanding a text with the easy of which to perceive it? As in technical books are remembered more than pixie books? But what on earth does content have to do with presentation?
Re: (Score:2)
If folks would just sing out loud what they're reading, it'll stick with them better. Add in some interprative dance as well and they'll never forget. Neither will anyone else on the train.
Re:This is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, this is BS. I remember way more of what I read on my Sony e-reader than I do from books. Probably because I don't have to read into the cracks of books and I can up the font so my eyes don't skip lines. I read so much more than I used to now that I have an e-reader its not funny. It's definitely my best purchase of 2010.
Re:This is... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, technically, if you think it's stupid, you probably don't agree with the findings, so your quip about reading it on your Kindle to forget it quicker isn't really funny.
Re: (Score:2)
This is consistent with previous research that showed harder to read fonts improved reading comprehension and retention. Because it was more difficult to read you concentrate more.
Not that I think it matters much for leisure reading anyway and there nothing to indicate that the difference in quality between print fonts and kindle fonts is going to be substantial enough to trigger this effect.
Re:This is... contradicted (Score:2)
In a series of comparative tests, readers using electronic devices read 15% slower on average than on paper positioned the same way. Higher bit-densities improved reading performance only slightly.
--dave
Not at my desk: "citation needed"
Re:This is... (Score:4, Insightful)
no kidding. Since when did "a blogger" get to define what's true?
Where's the peer reviewed studies?
Re:This is... (Score:4, Informative)
A study funded by Princeton University, published in the Cognition journal, found that people are better at retaining information written in a less fluent font.
Re: (Score:3)
It's in the article? no wonder I couldn't find it.
Re: (Score:2)
The study found that people are better at retaining information written in a difficult to read font, not one that is merely less smooth. The reasoning isn't that your brain finds the information more important either, it is that you have to concentrate more to read the text (something you don't have to do with a slightly less smooth but perfectly legible font) and the increased concentration tells your brain the information is more important.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. So as long you can convert your e-books from 14 point Georgia or Baskerville to 10 point Comic Sans or Copperplate (to reduce legibility), you should have no trouble with reading comprehension or learning. (I'm not seriously suggesting that anyone do this)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup.
In fact, since your print books don't normally come in difficult to read fonts the ability to change to a font that will increase your comprehension is a point in favor of digital readers, not against.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Quite possible. Increased focus, more conscious effort, or a combination of the two.
You neither slow down nor focus more when reading a perfectly legible font with slightly less smooth edges.
As someone else pointed out books aren't generally published with difficult to read fonts so being able to change to a difficult font is actually a point in favor of digital readers vs print.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
BBC article on the pre-published article [bbc.co.uk]
Overall where I find this summary and blog post irritating is that the study presented very little evidence that e-readers were sub-standard to printed books (the fonts are intentionally quite similar), except an anecdote from a 'Neuroscience blogger'. As noted higher in the thread, the e-reader theoretical ability to support a harder-to-read font (my kindle only accepts three very clear standard fonts currently, but that's software) should,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
He hasn't, yet. But once this hits Wikipedia, it's truth.
Re: (Score:2)
Just because a study is "peer reviewed" does not mean that the research has been independently reproduced by the reviewers. Nowadays, it just means, "Yeah, that dovetails with my prejudices on the matter and would allow our field to rake in a bunch more grant money."
Re: (Score:3)
The conclusion the blogger made isn't really supported by the study. The study found that fonts that were difficult to read required increased concentration and that resulted in higher retention.
Smoother edges might make fonts clearer but they don't increase legibility or affect the level of concentration actually required to read the text. No increased concentration means no increased retention.
E-Readers? (Score:4, Insightful)
What does this have to do with E-readers beside trying to increase article hits? The effect of readability would be just the same for a printed sheet of paper. But I guess that would not be so interesting to read about...
Re: (Score:3)
It is definitely about more than just e-readers - at the end:
The scientists wrote that "making material harder to learn can improve long-term learning and retention. More cognitive engagement leads to deeper processing", enabling the reader to recall the information more accurately.
I assume that would apply to an easy to read printed page as well as electronic content. I think it is still relevant to speak to e-readers in particular since they are becoming the pinnacle of reading ease. With an e-reader we can adjust size and font and contrast, sometimes even orientation; allow us to make reading personally easier in a way not possible for print. So if this concept is accurate, we can unknowingly be sub-optimizing our effo
Re:E-Readers? (Score:5, Insightful)
This all depends on the intent of the readers who were used as test subjects in this study. If they were told "read this text as fast as you can and tell me what it says," the scientists would end up with the results mentioned. If they were told "memorize this text" I'm pretty sure the results would be different.
After all, when speed reading for instant comprehension, I use a completely different reading technique than I do for memorizing content.
I think if you tested people from 200 years ago, there wouldn't be as much of a difference -- people tended to only read things that were of importance to them. But today, we are trained from an early age in being able to sift through large amounts of irrelevant text to find the information we're looking for. Better presentation allows us to sift through the irrelevant text faster; we don't want to remember it. We tend to spend the time scanning the text for a recognizable narrative. If we're then told to recall what that irrelevant text was, we won't have much of a clue, beyond the general structure.
If we make the presentation more difficult, our brain cannot slip into this "scan and sift" mode as often, as we keep missing key words and phrases, having to go back and re-read the content in "comprehension" mode in order to fit it together. So it stands that if we're reading the text in comprehension mode, we'll comprehend more of it.
If you study reading patterns, you will find that some people learn only one method of reading (not two or more) which significantly impacts their ability to learn in different environments.
For example, someone who can only do "comprehensive" reading will fail most tests that require skimming large amounts of text in a limited amount of time and responding with the appropriate answers provided. However, give them the same content with unlimited reading time, then wait two weeks to administer the test portion, and you'll find that they are the only ones who pass the test -- and could indeed pass a more difficult test on the same content. Someone who can only do "speed" reading will have the opposite problems. Most of us can do both to some degree; the skill of switching context between the two methods appropriately is a third variable however; people will usually tend towards one method or the other depending on what they're intending to absorb from the presented material. Hence, the Scientist's test has to take this intent into consideration (and I see no indication that it has).
Conclusion: I don't think these scientists tested exactly what they think they tested; time to go back and fine-tune the test and analyze the conditions within which the test was administered to the subjects.
Re: (Score:2)
Save it for Twitter, Anon
Failed to Mention (Score:5, Funny)
Somehow, I doubt it's the font that is making everyone stupid...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Stupid is whut stupid duz, thats whut Momma sez!
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. Finctional entertainment isn't usually about the details, it's about the story and the atmosphere. Any novels that focus too often on long winded descriptions (especially geographical details as in LOTR and Dune.. doubt I'll ever want to finish LOTR, though I might get back to Dune at some point) tend to make me lose interest. IMO a good storyteller is one that keeps the narrative flowing and can paint scenes, characters and moods without needing to fill a whole page. For example plays often hardly
Re: (Score:3)
"Stupid" is in the eye of the beholder. Books with high literary value, but limited entertainment value don't normally rate high on my pleasure reading list. Anything Steinbeck ever wrote falls easily beneath this threshold, I might consider terrorism before I read East of Eden again. However my sister might sit around reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and be enthralled, hold debates with people performing intelligent analysis of the characters and speculating about what the author might have been doing
Re: (Score:2)
Wait -- so you're saying you can't read a book that doesn't have phasers in it, so that makes classic literature stupid on a relative basis? Interesting theory.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm saying if you place no value on classic literature or the pieces therein which make it "great", it is stupid on a relative basis to literature you do read which you value, which may or may not involve phasers.
A summer blockbuster movie is certainly a hit or miss affair, however going in to it you know you're going to get some action, explosions, and unlikely love matchups. Or for the same time/money you can try to see "a film". Even a bad blockbuster will deliver what you went in expecting. A bad "film"
Re: (Score:2)
I don't find Twilight all that offensive from a reading standpoint, although being a sci-fi/fantasy geek, it's far too scant of detail and background. That being said, as I said to someone who was protesting the books as being hackneyed vamp porn, if you're reading Twilight to read a
No wonder I keep running out of the good drugs. (Score:2)
And yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet despite this supposed discovery the person put it out on a webpage which has to be read on a computer screen. I guess he didn't think his discovery was that important since we are all now going to forget it easier? Wouldn't it have been preferable to put scanned images of his handwriting instead?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh and he even used an easy to read font on his blog. Double fail!
Paper? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who has ever worked in Information Design can tell you that paper, with it's stunning contrast ratios and 1200 dpi printing is a far more precise medium than screens. WTF?
Paper bends (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
On an e-reader you can adjust the font and font size to make it easier on your eyes than most printed material.
Re: (Score:2)
Which would have nothing to do with eReader or not, it would have to do with font size. The research authors might be interested to know the technology to print words with various sized fonts has existed for some time now.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone who has ever worked in Information Design can tell you that paper, with it's stunning contrast ratios and 1200 dpi printing is a far more precise medium than screens. WTF?
Let's say you have an 11" monitor - this measures ~10" across, or 8.5" high. Let's say it magically has 2048x1536 resolution, which is beyond current technology.
This screen is still below 300 dpi.
And yes, paper work provides much higher resultion when screens, as demonstrated by M.C. Escher [google.com]. While you can do the same on a computer screen, the detail will get lost if you zoom out (and you might not recognize that you can zoom further for more detail.)
Hipsters... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Hipsters don't use e-readers, they use I-Pads..
Study too small... (Score:5, Interesting)
The study had 28 participants... and they were asked to remember species of aliens...
While this may be a sign that it's worth looking into the differences a font makes in learning, I'll wait until a bigger study comes out where participants were asked to read a more likely and involved subject matter like the history of the Ottoman Empire.
I have a feeling many participants will be less likely to read past the first chapter if it was written in Comic Sans.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And for your focusing
Re: (Score:2)
If the test showed statistical significance, it won't matter if they increase the sample size, the results will be the same.That's what statistical significance is FOR.
Its a while since I did any stats but IIRC statistical significance means the chance of getting the results you got or worse results by random chance is lower than some threshold, usually quite a high one. A 5% significance level means that 1 in 20 tests you will get a positive result by random chance.
1 in 20 tests giving a false positive ma
Re: (Score:2)
If the test showed statistical significance, it won't matter if they increase the sample size, the results will be the same.
Wrong. Statistical significance implies nothing of the sort. All it says is that the results didn't come about by chance it in no way implies that the same results will happen regardless of sample size nor that the results are even meaningful. Maybe you should actually go back and relearn the basics of statistics before spouting off such nonsense?
Re: (Score:2)
If your results are different because you had a small sample size, then they DID come about by chance. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_power [wikipedia.org] Some excerpts:
Power analysis can be used to calculate the minimum sample size required to accept the outcome of a statistical test with a particular level of confidence. It can also be used to calculate the minimum effect size that is likely to be detected in a study using a given sample size.
For example, if we were expecting a population correlation betw
Read better material, don't change font (Score:5, Insightful)
There were two main criteria that he used for describing if something is easily forgotten or not: ease of reading visually and complexity of writing.
It seems as if he's advocating making fonts and such harder to read, so that we are more likely to remember what we read, regardless of whether what we are reading is some trashy novel or a manual that we need to know to save lives. This seems wrong. We should be remembering details from what we read based on the quality and importance of the writing, not the font.
Re: (Score:2)
It seems as if he's advocating making fonts and such harder to read, so that we are more likely to remember what we read, regardless of whether what we are reading is some trashy novel or a manual that we need to know to save lives.
And yet he posts it to a blog using an easy to read font. Apparently he didn't want any to be more likely to remember his discovery?
Re: (Score:2)
Easier? (Score:3)
Interesting contrast to my experience: I find black ink on paper (using standard TR font) easier to read than the lower contrast text on eReaders and monitors. Flat panel monitors have no detectable flicker like the old CRT monitors (even at high vertical refresh rates with no interleaving) - but their contrast is poorer.
In my case, the "tangible" aspect of turning physical pages seems to make the information stick better. Perhaps that's due to familiarity with the format.
Wrong (Score:3)
gah, so wrong.
What it points to is that people need to read more challenging works. Something with new words or clever phrases.
Remembering a crappy sentence just because some ink is smudges, or that the font is blurry helps nothing.
On guy extrapolating research he doesn't seem to understand into his person experience means, exactly..nothing.
He likes books, and is just fishing for excuses that justifies his love of books.
Me? I have read a lot of books. I don't love books, I love good stories. The book is nothing, the story is everything.
I call bullsh*t (Score:2)
FOX News? (Score:2)
This sounds more like a story from there and less like a scientific research study. Even then, I can remember reading certain Slashdot stories from 3 years ago more than I can remember the plot outline of the Wheel of Time, which I started reading 2 years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember the Wheel of Time plotline, but that's only because I remember the Dune plotline and they're pretty much the same.
Science running out of ideas... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
SO you based your statement that science is 'running out of ideas' on an article from a blog? one that doesn't even seem to understand the study he is talking about?
The real question is "When are you going to stop and think?"
Good science is being done every day all around the world. I was reading an article on how they can now determine the hair color from genetic material any where from 60% to 90% certainty depending on the color. If memory serves 90% for red heads, 60% for blondes.
That's great science. Di
Re: (Score:2)
The real question is "When are you going to stop and think?"
I'll take "People who take jokes at face value" for 100, Alex.
Which e-Reader Comany... (Score:2)
Microsoft to the rescue! (Score:2)
So there's two key problems with these devices. (Score:2)
1. The text is much harder to read than regular ink on paper.
2. The text is much easier to read than regular ink on paper.
I'm glad the commentators of the world have been able to identify these two problems.
That said, yes, it's been observed in the past that harder to read text can produce stronger memories, but this is not necessarily a good tradeoff, depending on what you're reading and why.
Re: (Score:2)
I find it hard to read or even remember what I read on a Kindle type display, because the black on greyish contrast is offputting. I find myself distracted by the display and not focusing on the text.
New at 11 (Score:2)
Next on news: memory bits are too easy on computer's CPUs.
Finally vindicated! (Score:3)
Use cut-up letters from magazines (Score:4, Funny)
I have RTFA (Score:2)
I have RTFA, but I've already forgotten it.
QED. ;^P
Even if the fonts are an issue, there's a fix (Score:2)
We already digitally add graininess, snow, and other effects to video images when we want them to look like older methods of video capture. If this is an actual problem (which I find doubtful), then within a few years you'll likely see companies adding mechanisms to introduce imperfections into the fonts of their e-reading devices. Either that, or they'll all just use Comic Sans, since there are few fonts that are more painful to read in today's marketplace.
Re: (Score:2)
Oddly, when I recently looked at Sony e-readers in the store, all the texts they had loaded onto the thing were actually quite hmm, "dirty" -- the characters didn't have the typical crisp shapes and outlines of electronic text but rather had ragged edges and dropouts all over the place. Maybe they loaded image-pdfs for some reason (presumably because the employee in charge of doing it was too clueless to tell the difference), or maybe there was a problem with the eink hardware.
Easier to remember or not, t
Study (Score:2)
Here's the actual study [princeton.edu] which describes this phenomenon.
I'm now switching my browser defaults to Arial so I can forget everything I read on Slashdot faster.
Lazy kids today and your easy-to-read books! (Score:2)
New research suggests that the clear screens and easily read fonts of e-readers makes your brain "lazy."
Given that introduction, TFA is made of epic fail if it lacks the following two elements:
ears? (Score:2)
Cover your eyes the better to see with.
Cover your ears the better to hear with.
Cover your mouth the better to speak with.
This message is very important (Score:2)
Regular books (Score:2)
What about regular books ? Crisper fonts, and better contrast compared to e-readers.
Easily solved (Score:2)
From TFA:
When you are a reading a straightforward sentence, or a paragraph full of tropes and cliches, you’re almost certainly relying on this ventral neural highway. As a result, the act of reading seems effortless and easy. We don’t have to think about the words on the page.
But the ventral route is not the only way to read. The second reading pathway – it’s known as the dorsal stream – is turned on whenever we’re forced to pay conscious attention to a sentence, perhaps because of an obscure word, or an awkward subclause, or bad handwriting.
Well that says it all, doesn't it. If you want people to remember what you wrote, write something interesting that doesn't consist of tropes and cliches and therefore motivates the reader to pay conscious attention. If you insist on writing something inane full of tropes and cliches, publish in Bad Handwriting Sans, throw in an obscure word or two and several awkward subclauses or maybe you could translate the entire thing into linear B.
There are good reasons for activating conscious attention and
Old programmer's aphorism (Score:2)
"If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read."
That's what I've always said about LaTeX (Score:2)
Totally agree. Anything anybody writes using LaTeX must be important and clever because the default font is so darn ugly.
Right about details, wrong about concepts (Score:2)
When text is harder to read, this forces our cognitive resources on the shape of the letters and how letters form words. We try to find familiar words in the confusing medium, and therefore as a side effect focus on unknown words, such as the name of those "fictional alien species" which the readers were tested against.
So they're right in that when we read harder, we're better at noticing the particular spelling of unknown words. But what do we sacrifice in the process? Our focus shifts to merely trying to
Speed! Speed! Speed! (Score:2)
I have the Kindle app on my iPad, and my main observation is that I read a lot faster. The amount of text per screen is less than on a printed page, but it's just about right to read at a glance. It's a shame the battery life sucks compared to a real Kindle.
...laura, unashamed Apple fangirl
Counter example disproves this theory (Score:2)
I've known a number of women who were also "so easy on the eyes", and I'm pretty sure I remember them all in detail.
Experts say... (Score:2)
In contrast, handwriting and fonts that are more challenging to read signal to the brain that the content of the message is important and worth remembering, experts say.
I don't know who these experts are or why they say that, but for me handwriting and fonts that are more challenging to read signal to the brain that the content isn't worth reading because it's too much trouble, causing me to stop reading and go do something else.
Car Analogy Time! (Score:2)
Driving a manual transmission engages the driver more than an automatic, and thus are more aware of their surroundings (and are arguably safer drivers for it). Automatics just allow people's attention to be focused on screaming kids and hot girls walking down the sidewalk.
e-readers are the automatic transmission of reading? Well, probably not as bad as books-on-tape, but I can see a tiny hint of validity to these findings.
That explains it! (Score:2)
That explains why doctor's handwriting looks like my 2-year olds...harder to read, more important...Time to start writing in my newly designed crap font....
Moran. (Score:2)
Making text harder to read makes for more eyestrain and headaches.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, everyone knows how vital reading comprehension test scores are throughout your daily life.
Re: (Score:2)
Because he loves books. And people who love books hate E-Reader. people who love stories, OTOH, enjoy e-readers
It's a biased nothing article, probably submitted by a book lover.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually "Refried Strüdel". But I think this may be the exception...