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Dec 23, 2008 02:25 PM | 17
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It's no mystery that publications have been taking a beating as more and more people read their news on the Net. But there's a catch. The online info may be instant and abundant -- and in many cases free -- but it may come at a cost, says a new study published in the Journal of Research in Reading.
Study author Anne Mangen, an associate prof of literacy studies at Norway's University of Stavanger, says she discovered that reading online may not be as rewarding – or effective – as the printed word. The reasons: The process involves so much physical manipulation of the computer that it interferes with our ability to focus on and appreciate what we're reading; online text moves up and down the screen and lacks physical dimension, robbing us of a feeling of completeness; and multimedia features, such as links to videos and animations, leave little room for imagination, limiting our ability to form our own mental pictures to illustrate what we're reading.
"The visual happenings on the screen… and your physical interaction with the device is distracting," Mangen says. "All of these things are taxing on cognition and concentration in a way that a book is not."
Given her findings, Mangen says that the implications of digital technology should be considered when deciding whether to incorporate computer teaching tools into classroom instruction. She notes that online teaching tools, such as electronic books, are being used from kindergarten up even though there is little research on their effect on learning and development.
"I know from studying kids' use of the Internet in schools that [there is] the issue of whether kids [stick to] reading," says Janet Schofield, a psychology prof at the University of Pittsburg, noting that "it's very easy [for them] to become distracted, because it takes so little effort to go somewhere else" online. She does not discount, however, that online reading has its pluses, most notably that it provides instant access to more info on topics of interest.
Richard Long of the International Reading Association, a nonprofit organization of literacy professionals in Newark, Del., says more research needs to be done to study the effects of online reading on different users. For instance, he says, many older people may absorb more or learn faster by flipping through pages, because their brains have been trained to read hard copy, whereas younger readers may learn faster digitally, because they're accustomed to working online. "Previous experience has a tremendous impact on rate and thoroughness of learning," he says. "The actual learning phenomenon is the same at the end of the day."
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17 Comments
Add CommentSounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy study to me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust taking into my experience from reading online SCIAM vs the magazine, when there is a topic I am unfamiliar with, SCIAM has helpful links to other pages explaining more, and google is just a click away. For subjects which I am new to, online reading lets me catch up faster.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do understand when I want to learn in depth, submerse myself in a topic I am familiar with, the imagination and creativity I gain when reading print isn't compariable to online reading.
I suggest if you are looking to invent or push the bounds of a subject, print is a must for the thought process, but catching up on learning something foreign, online is the way to go, resources.
This may explain why i feel a complusion to print out things i want to read off the web.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree about the distractions. I think reading something in print allows one to focus better and "train" the young mind to concentrate on the reading material. I think concentration is a skill that needs to be learned and it can be a difficult one to learn when there is so much distraction in place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...and like AZeldenrust mentioned, I, too, feel the compulsion to print out things I want to read off the web. Sometimes I just want to read a specific subject matter without the "clutter" all over the page.
I tend to agree with agenthucky: "..print is a must for the thought process..".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess it explains why I choose a book for reading History or for that matter anything for which one needs to take a "long view" - in-depth knowledge - thinking why a historical figure happened to think and act in a particular way, and finding those answers that ultimately led him/ her to fashion history.
I doubt gaining that knowledge from a computer is easy(even for the next generation).
That should infer: I am not here to gain in-depth knowledge.
Then what am I here for? Find/ Know interesting facts? Definitely. Entertainment? Possibly. Develop the scientific temper? Probably. In-depth knowledge? No.
"....there is the issue whether kids stick to reading..." I believe this is an important issue to decide. Could it be that what we require students, especially high school students, to read (the "classics") that turns them off to reading for life? I graduated from high school thinking I hated to read because I had to read Charles Dickens, Moby Dick, Great Expectations, etc. It was boring to the ultimate. When I got into college I started reading what was interesting to me (it jus happened to be about mountain climbing) and found that I loved to read. Now it's mostly history, science, biography - things that educate a person in addition to entertain them. As for whether it should come from the screen or a book, I'll take the screen for the surface content and a book for in-depth coverage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy major problem with online reading is with the hot links. Although they provide very helpful supplementary information, they disrupt the flow of thought that comes with reading the text continuously. When I follow hot links while reading online I often find myself many levels away from the original text, and very often I never get to come back. I wish there were the possibility to configure hot links such that when you click on one, it adds an entry in a "further readings list", so that after finishing the text, you can explore the information of the hot links.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<blockquote>"The visual happenings on the screen& and your physical interaction with the device is distracting," Mangen says. "All of these things are taxing on cognition and concentration in a way that a book is not."</blockquote>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas our lady heard of flashblock ..or the like? Works fine.
Nothing on the page needs to be jumping.
As to following links; don't!..if they distract you.
I find that a piece I want to peruse and maybe annotate ( crazy for formatting), I just do a <i>select all</i> and copy it to a good office client..and then understand it , play with it, at your leisure.
VERY rarely I paper print something and want to mark it all up with marker and highliter..but that's just because I love it...like maybe the Chaos piece in this issue...we'll see.
Another exception would apply to some of the amazing illustrations Scientific American does...I would buy the issue to marvel and touch or maybe even smell the slick paper and all that.
[hard to buy hard copy from them tho']
ALL that said; I do not <b>know</b> if I learn as well as I did with paper/hardcopy, but I do not read very much bookwise anymore (there are specific places where it works pretty well though..and we all know where they find themselves.)
Anybody interested in an example of the Chaos piece done on open office can contact me for an attachment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMerry Christmas and stuff, all.
try cooliris a firefox add on that previews links as a "picture in picture" and that can then be stacked as tabs in the margin for later recall.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuring my time as a college instructor, I have encountered numerous readings, lectures, and workshops on effective teaching and learning, wherein the value of using multimedia has been emphasized. One reason given is that different learners are attuned to different content forms, and that using multiple ways to present the same information is an effective method for making sure that any and all students are learning in the best way possible. Another is that today's learners are already exposed to information that comes at them in multiple layers, high definition, and with quick and frequent transitions. Anything short of that is bound not to retain their attention for long. That being said, it's true that nothing beats a well-written story with a good plot line. If only that could be said of textbooks, which--by their inherent nature--cannot compete with decent novels, let alone good movies with surround-sound and high definition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI work as an editor sometimes - and have trained myself to be as proficient on screen as off. At first it was difficult. The sense of structure and the relationship among the paragraphs seemed more difficult to see and retain but I persevered and now I prefer screen editing - although I keep a one page overview handy: this is more about screen size than medium though I think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore and more I am becoming irritated by print. Where is the Find function when I want to check back? Where is the right click to define an unusual term or a Define search etc?
The physical limitations of the screen will diminish I think so that, like an iPhone, we will be able to turn our laptops to get a vertical page, and to use scrolling techniques directly on the screen. We can already highlight etc.
Children perhaps need training to focus and to follow through as well as to follow the tempting byways available on screen.
Analogous studies comparing written composition done by hand versus that done on the computer reveal that an essay written by hand receives a higher rating by trained scorers than the identical one written on a word processor--unless the handwritten essay is barely legible. As far as I know, no one has compared journaling by hand versus journaling on a word processor, but I find the former much more rewarding. Then again, I am 57 years old.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood post and very interesting. Have you heard of my new coinage, to call reading online "screening" instead of reading? Your POV?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDANNY BLOOM
Tufts 1971
my full take is here
http://zippy1300.blogspot.com
Are you 'reading' this article or 'screening' it online?
By Dan Bloom
If you are reading this comentary in the printed version of this
newspaper, you are "reading" it
in print. But if you are reading it online, on this newspaper's
website, would you be "reading" it or "screening" it?
There's a message here for those readers reading this online. Print
readers might also find this idea worth discussing as well.
To readers online I want to say: What you are doing now is not
reading, but "screening." Yes, you are at this very moment screening
the textprinted digitally on this computer screen. You are not reading
text on a paper surface; you are "screening" this article through the
lens of the computer screen in front of you. Perhaps a new word is
born -- screening!
When a top computer industry writer at the New York Times, John
Markoff, was told
about this new term, he told me in a one-word email note:"Hmmmmmmm." I
think he didn't quite cotton to the new terminology I am proposing.
But at least he was listening. He didn't tell me to get lost, although
maybe that is what he meant.
Screening? Can anyone just coin a new word and make it stick? No, but
new words are coined everyday, and some stick and some don't. Time
will tell whether or not "screening" (to mean "reading information on
a computer screen, as distinct from reading a print newspaper or
magazine or book") will stay with us or not. For now, the word has
been accepted and listed by the editors at urbandictionary.com.
LINK:
Screening has defined there as: "To read text on a computer screen,
cellphonescreen, Kindle screen or PDA screen or BlackBerry screen;
replaces the term "reading" which now only refers to reading print
text on paper."
Example: "I hate reading print newspapers now. I do all my screening online."
The word is so new that most have never heard of it. And many readers,
I am sure, online and reading this newspaper's print edition, will not
agree with the coinage.
James Fallows, an editor for the Atlantic Monthly now living in
Beijing, told me the word was interesting but that he was "not likely
to be an early
adopter of "screening" for two reasons.
"There is already and established and different meaning of "screening" that
could easily be confused here," Fallows said in an email. "The
meaning I have in mind is similar to
"skimming," "reviewing," "categorizing" etc -- going through material
quickly to assess its importance, as opposed to fully concentrating on and
absorbing it."
Fallows added: "The existing meaning of "reading" has been independent
of the medium on
which the words are displayed. We've used the term to apply to words printed
on paper; subtitles on a movie screen; words flashed on neon signs; etc. In
all the cases, regardless of medium, we use "read" to refer to the act of
taking in written symbols by eye and converting them mentally to
words. So, good luck with this idea. I am not opposed to it, but this
is why I'll
stick with "reading" myself."
Amit Gilboa, an Israeli writer living in Singapore and a frequent
visitor to Taipei, told me: "No, it's still reading. Whether in a
book, a print newspaper, chalkboard, whiteboard, it's still reading
words made up of letters. Screening is still reading."
However, Hidetoshi Abe in Japan, said in an email that he likes the new term
and agrees it fits our new Internet age. "I think 'screening' makes
perfect sense to represent the way we now take in information via
computer screens. It's a whole new ballgame," he said in a recent
email.
Reading, of course, is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols
printed on a paper surface for the purpose of deriving meaning
(reading comprehension) and/or constructing meaning, according to
scholars. Written information on a printed page is received by the
retina, processed by the primary visual cortex, and interpreted in
Wernicke's area.
But when we "read" online (or "screen", in the new coinage), the
digitalized information is processed in a different way. Reading
online is not the same thing as reading on a paper surface in a book
or magazine or newspaper.
If you reading this article on the Taipei Times website, you have just
"screened" your very first article online using this new term. You are
now an Internet ''screener''. Congratulations, and welcome to this
brave new world.
When I asked some members of an online reading discussion group what
they thought about the idea of calling online reading "screening"
instead of reading, I received a variety of answers, most of them
negative, but some of them positive as well. Some people liked the
new word that has been proposed, and others said they didn't like it
at all and that
a new word was not necessary.
Said Liz Hill, a reading consultant in North America: "This is very
interesting. Words do
come and go in our language all the
time, and usage is what makes them stick. However, I don't think
"screening" is the right context for replacing the word "read." I
didn't "paper" or "book", before did I? I do agree that we do
something a little differently when reading online,
but for me it involves the ability to connect or forward that
information so easily, rather than the way it appears on the (yes... I
have to say it) screen.A word involving links or chains makes more sense to me."
Annette Goldsmith of the College of Information at Florida State
University opined: "It's an interesting idea, but I think this
particular term is confusing. Screening text could have the same
meaning as screening calls, that is, doing a quick initial check to
see if it's something you choose to hear or read, as opposed to simply
reading it online."
Sharon Schneeberger said: "My definition of reading includes making
meaning of text. That definition if reading remains the same
regardless of the genre or format you are using to access the text."
Schneeberger added: "I think retention has to do with my purpose for
reading. Sometimes online I start to read something and by following
the various links end up finding out something far more interesting.
What I read online is usually shorter and is different than reading a
whole book. Sometimes I read a journal article online, but still that
is not like reading a book.
I do not have a Kindle and wonder what reading a book on it is like. I
agree that how we read is changing."
Jeff Hsieh, a Taiwanese-American college student in California, noted:
"Personally, I
prefer reading from a real, solid, hard copy, whether it is books,
news, or anything. The comoputer screen gets my eyes tired."
Kit Stoltz, a reporter based in Los Angeles, noted: "Maybe be the word
will stick, maybe not, but I'll remember it."
Jalel Sager, an expat editor in Vietnam, said: "The writer in me bridles at
the new word. Frankly, I think 'screening' has too many other closely
related meanings, especially. the one that means "to filter" -- which
is kind of interesting, because that's really that you do when you
read online -- filter information from the online sea."
Jenny Schickley opined: "I don't think the term "screening" to refer
to any print read online is appropriate. I think if you are reading
words it is reading. However, I have noticed the propensity
in myself and my students to skim images and headlines to gather hot
topics or to
attempt to find something more interesting to bother to read in
detail. I would accept the term "screening" to apply to such quick
scanning -- but not to actual
moments when I take the time to read properly."
Anne Moten from Australia said: "I don't know that we can define
reading as something related only to
books, for example, we read maps, and music scores. I think it is more
related to the act than the format."
Allen Bean in London said: "I am wary to qualify or re-name the term
reading -- merely because people are "reading" in different formats."
Waller Hastings of Rutgers University in New Jersey noted: "Before we
get all involved in trying to figure out the "best"
alternative word for ''reading'' on line, maybe we should pause a moment to
determine what it is that we think is so different? "Reading" is, at
minimum, the decoding of text from symbolic representation (the words)
to cognitive concept (the ideas). I read the credits to a movie on the
movie screen, I read the words on traffic signs when I drive the
Interstate, I read text from books, periodicals, and newspapers, I read
things on the Internet. We have used "reading" to refer to the first
three kinds of actions for quite some time - so why do we suddenly need
a new word for the same action applied now to a different interface?"
"As to the idea that we don't fully read text online, well, we don't
always read text in detail in any other situations. I only read movie
credits to identify actors, music, or other details about which I am
curious; I stop reading a road sign when I realize it is not the exit I
am searching for; I skip quickly through a book or a periodical article
if I have only a minimal interest in it, or to quickly pick up the gist.
This latter activity we have traditionally called "skimming." How is
skipping the details in an e-mail any different?"
"I'm all for changing the language to meet new demands, but I frankly
don't see why this is such a demand."
So Dear Reader, what's your take on this new coinage "screening"? Does
it make sense, does it add up, or is it the wrong term for what is
going on online these days? If you have any other words or terms,
you'd like to nominate, please send them to this newspaper in care of
the letters editor.
Good post and very interesting. Have you heard of my new coinage, to call reading online "screening" instead of reading? Your POV?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDANNY BLOOM
Tufts 1971
my full take is here
http://zippy1300.blogspot.com
Are you 'reading' this article or 'screening' it online?
By Dan Bloom
If you are reading this comentary in the printed version of this
newspaper, you are "reading" it
in print. But if you are reading it online, on this newspaper's
website, would you be "reading" it or "screening" it?
There's a message here for those readers reading this online. Print
readers might also find this idea worth discussing as well.
To readers online I want to say: What you are doing now is not
reading, but "screening." Yes, you are at this very moment screening
the textprinted digitally on this computer screen. You are not reading
text on a paper surface; you are "screening" this article through the
lens of the computer screen in front of you. Perhaps a new word is
born -- screening!
When a top computer industry writer at the New York Times, John
Markoff, was told
about this new term, he told me in a one-word email note:"Hmmmmmmm." I
think he didn't quite cotton to the new terminology I am proposing.
But at least he was listening. He didn't tell me to get lost, although
maybe that is what he meant.
Screening? Can anyone just coin a new word and make it stick? No, but
new words are coined everyday, and some stick and some don't. Time
will tell whether or not "screening" (to mean "reading information on
a computer screen, as distinct from reading a print newspaper or
magazine or book") will stay with us or not. For now, the word has
been accepted and listed by the editors at urbandictionary.com.
LINK:
Screening has defined there as: "To read text on a computer screen,
cellphonescreen, Kindle screen or PDA screen or BlackBerry screen;
replaces the term "reading" which now only refers to reading print
text on paper."
Example: "I hate reading print newspapers now. I do all my screening online."
The word is so new that most have never heard of it. And many readers,
I am sure, online and reading this newspaper's print edition, will not
agree with the coinage.
James Fallows, an editor for the Atlantic Monthly now living in
Beijing, told me the word was interesting but that he was "not likely
to be an early
adopter of "screening" for two reasons.
"There is already and established and different meaning of "screening" that
could easily be confused here," Fallows said in an email. "The
meaning I have in mind is similar to
"skimming," "reviewing," "categorizing" etc -- going through material
quickly to assess its importance, as opposed to fully concentrating on and
absorbing it."
Fallows added: "The existing meaning of "reading" has been independent
of the medium on
which the words are displayed. We've used the term to apply to words printed
on paper; subtitles on a movie screen; words flashed on neon signs; etc. In
all the cases, regardless of medium, we use "read" to refer to the act of
taking in written symbols by eye and converting them mentally to
words. So, good luck with this idea. I am not opposed to it, but this
is why I'll
stick with "reading" myself."
Amit Gilboa, an Israeli writer living in Singapore and a frequent
visitor to Taipei, told me: "No, it's still reading. Whether in a
book, a print newspaper, chalkboard, whiteboard, it's still reading
words made up of letters. Screening is still reading."
However, Hidetoshi Abe in Japan, said in an email that he likes the new term
and agrees it fits our new Internet age. "I think 'screening' makes
perfect sense to represent the way we now take in information via
computer screens. It's a whole new ballgame," he said in a recent
email.
Reading, of course, is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols
printed on a paper surface for the purpose of deriving meaning
(reading comprehension) and/or constructing meaning, according to
scholars. Written information on a printed page is received by the
retina, processed by the primary visual cortex, and interpreted in
Wernicke's area.
But when we "read" online (or "screen", in the new coinage), the
digitalized information is processed in a different way. Reading
online is not the same thing as reading on a paper surface in a book
or magazine or newspaper.
If you reading this article on the Taipei Times website, you have just
"screened" your very first article online using this new term. You are
now an Internet ''screener''. Congratulations, and welcome to this
brave new world.
When I asked some members of an online reading discussion group what
they thought about the idea of calling online reading "screening"
instead of reading, I received a variety of answers, most of them
negative, but some of them positive as well. Some people liked the
new word that has been proposed, and others said they didn't like it
at all and that
a new word was not necessary.
Said Liz Hill, a reading consultant in North America: "This is very
interesting. Words do
come and go in our language all the
time, and usage is what makes them stick. However, I don't think
"screening" is the right context for replacing the word "read." I
didn't "paper" or "book", before did I? I do agree that we do
something a little differently when reading online,
but for me it involves the ability to connect or forward that
information so easily, rather than the way it appears on the (yes... I
have to say it) screen.A word involving links or chains makes more sense to me."
Annette Goldsmith of the College of Information at Florida State
University opined: "It's an interesting idea, but I think this
particular term is confusing. Screening text could have the same
meaning as screening calls, that is, doing a quick initial check to
see if it's something you choose to hear or read, as opposed to simply
reading it online."
Sharon Schneeberger said: "My definition of reading includes making
meaning of text. That definition if reading remains the same
regardless of the genre or format you are using to access the text."
Schneeberger added: "I think retention has to do with my purpose for
reading. Sometimes online I start to read something and by following
the various links end up finding out something far more interesting.
What I read online is usually shorter and is different than reading a
whole book. Sometimes I read a journal article online, but still that
is not like reading a book.
I do not have a Kindle and wonder what reading a book on it is like. I
agree that how we read is changing."
Jeff Hsieh, a Taiwanese-American college student in California, noted:
"Personally, I
prefer reading from a real, solid, hard copy, whether it is books,
news, or anything. The comoputer screen gets my eyes tired."
Kit Stoltz, a reporter based in Los Angeles, noted: "Maybe be the word
will stick, maybe not, but I'll remember it."
Jalel Sager, an expat editor in Vietnam, said: "The writer in me bridles at
the new word. Frankly, I think 'screening' has too many other closely
related meanings, especially. the one that means "to filter" -- which
is kind of interesting, because that's really that you do when you
read online -- filter information from the online sea."
Jenny Schickley opined: "I don't think the term "screening" to refer
to any print read online is appropriate. I think if you are reading
words it is reading. However, I have noticed the propensity
in myself and my students to skim images and headlines to gather hot
topics or to
attempt to find something more interesting to bother to read in
detail. I would accept the term "screening" to apply to such quick
scanning -- but not to actual
moments when I take the time to read properly."
Anne Moten from Australia said: "I don't know that we can define
reading as something related only to
books, for example, we read maps, and music scores. I think it is more
related to the act than the format."
Allen Bean in London said: "I am wary to qualify or re-name the term
reading -- merely because people are "reading" in different formats."
Waller Hastings of Rutgers University in New Jersey noted: "Before we
get all involved in trying to figure out the "best"
alternative word for ''reading'' on line, maybe we should pause a moment to
determine what it is that we think is so different? "Reading" is, at
minimum, the decoding of text from symbolic representation (the words)
to cognitive concept (the ideas). I read the credits to a movie on the
movie screen, I read the words on traffic signs when I drive the
Interstate, I read text from books, periodicals, and newspapers, I read
things on the Internet. We have used "reading" to refer to the first
three kinds of actions for quite some time - so why do we suddenly need
a new word for the same action applied now to a different interface?"
"As to the idea that we don't fully read text online, well, we don't
always read text in detail in any other situations. I only read movie
credits to identify actors, music, or other details about which I am
curious; I stop reading a road sign when I realize it is not the exit I
am searching for; I skip quickly through a book or a periodical article
if I have only a minimal interest in it, or to quickly pick up the gist.
This latter activity we have traditionally called "skimming." How is
skipping the details in an e-mail any different?"
"I'm all for changing the language to meet new demands, but I frankly
don't see why this is such a demand."
So Dear Reader, what's your take on this new coinage "screening"? Does
it make sense, does it add up, or is it the wrong term for what is
going on online these days? If you have any other words or terms,
you'd like to nominate, please send them to this newspaper in care of
the letters editor.
what about ''screening'' as new word for reading online?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdanny is 60
just hit the back button and you can see all of the hot links or you can right click on the hot link and open it in a new tab.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this