Martin Bulmer in New Zealand on how we read and don't read in this new PAPER vs SCREEN Age....

Martin Bulmer currently lives in New Zealand where he serves as General Manager, Wellington Office at NV Interactive. In addition, he twitters at Toa5t and occasionally posts at Boxes and Arrows. He has more than 15 years experience as a business-focused Internet professional offering specialist skills and depth of experience in user experience, user interface design and information architecture (IA) as well as consultative sales, developing digital strategies, innovation and problem solving. He also has beaucoup experience running web teams and web projects.


So Zippy13oo was pleased to see Martin's comment at Boxes and Arrows recently, which he also tweeted about, saying, in response to this blog's ongoing research into the differences between reading on paper and reading on screens:

MARTIN BULMER: Hi Zippy1300! All I can say is that the comment system of B+A sure discourages reading from screen. Yes, we'll be reading from paper. if for no other reason than it'll still be around; there's just too much value in them thar pages. BUT paper, generally, does not run out of batteries, can respond well to serious abuse (being dropped, wetted, folded, torn, stuck back together, written on and thumbed repeatedly) and has a number of useful cues and affordances. You can tell how far through the book you are; you can use this method to estimate your position should you drop the bookmark. you can scan the pages quickly because you remember quite a lot about the shape of paragraphs. Being reflective rather than luminant it is more often than not easer on the eye. Most importantly, these sorts of cues don't have to be taught explicitly; they come as baggage with the teaching of reading. I don't know about you, but if I switch off my concious focus when reading on screen I have to go back and read again; it seems to require 'active reading'. Reading a book on the other hand is more often refered to as 'relaxing'... I'd be very surprised if different parts of the brain didn't light up..."