Hamlet's BlackBerry: a new book by William Powers, coming soon, in 2010. A most important book!

What the blogosphere is saying so far:

Here's another recent take on "Hamlet's Blackberry" by William ...26 Jun 2009 by dan
THE print media will live on because of its limitations as much as its strengths, argues William Powers in Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal, the most-read report on Creative Economy in 2007. For concentrated reading of longer ...
The End of the Printed Page, Newspapers,... - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/
[ More results from The End of the Printed Page, Newspapers,... ]


On Hamlet's Blackberry : Noah Liebman4 Jul 2008 by Noah
In his paper entitled Hamlet's Blackberry, he argues (among other things) that what makes paper so enduring as a medium despite decades-long predictions of its impending demise is the way we humans interact with it, and the information ...
Noah Liebman - http://noahliebman.com/ - References


TechBlog: Linkpost | 6.20.200920 Jun 2009 by chron.com
"Hamlet's Blackberry" about Mr. Paper, and Powers says that Mr Paper is not dead yet.....yet! Dwight, it time and inclination allows, do blog one day on Beam's column on this. MIT's Technology Review with Jason Pontin is poised to ...
TechBlog - http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/


On The Media22 Jun 2009 by onthemedia@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio)
Finally, for a great essay on the question of reading today, look for “Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal,” by William Powers. Some interesting thoughts in it about the relationship between reading (and comprehension and memory) ...
On The Media - http://www.onthemedia.org/?sourceref=rss - References


Northward Ho: "I screen, you screen, we all screen" - New York ...20 Jun 2009 by dan
His essay, “Hamlet's BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,'' was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into ...
Northward Ho - http://northwardho.blogspot.com/
[ More results from Northward Ho ]


Media Critic Bill Powers on Paper's Permanence5 Oct 2007
"Oh, yes, paper's days are most certainly numbered... or are they?" Read former Shorenstein fellow Bill Powers' thoughtful essay "Hamlet's Blackberry, Why Paper is Eternal."
Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics... - http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/ - References


Hamlet's Blackberry: Why paper is eternal « Eric Jennings11 Dec 2007 by Eric Jennings
If you haven't come across the article “Hamlet's Blackberry: Why paper is eternal” by William Powers I suggest you download it and read it. Although I haven't yet finished reading it (it's 75 pages long), I think that Powers' article ...
Eric Jennings - http://ericjennings.wordpress.com/


Ink and Vellum: More from Hamlet's Blackberry6 May 2008 by John M. Jackson
I had a wonderful time reading William Powers's essay, "Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal". I felt in the presence of a kindred spirit. In short, Powers looks at the proliferation of portable, digital media and asks the obvious, ...
Ink and Vellum - http://inkandvellum.blogspot.com/


The Shakespeare Geek Blog : Hamlet's Blackberry4 Jul 2008 by Duane
Hamlet's Blackberry. at 9:01 PM · http://noahliebman.com/2008/07/04/on-hamlets-blackberry/. Thanks to Noah for this link to an NPR segment on the future of paper. Haven't listened yet, but it's in my queue. I love stuff like that. ...
Shakespeare Geek - http://blog.shakespearegeek.com/


Paul Armstrong joins the former-editor club of Australia - Crikey15 Jan 2009
Powers is also the author of the extraordinarily popular online article Hamlet's Blackberry (75 pages long!) http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/research_publications/papers/discussion_papers/D39.pdf ...
Crikey RSS - http://www.crikey.com.au/FB-RSS.xml - References

Kindle Reading versus Gutenberg Reading: Is there a big difference?

Is there much of a difference?

How so?

In what way?

Please descrine your POV.

Storybooks On Paper Better For Children Than Reading Fiction On Computer Screen, According to Expert

Storybooks On Paper Better For Children Than Reading Fiction On Computer Screen, According to Expert
ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2008) — Clicking and scrolling interrupt our attentional focus. Turning and touching the pages instead of clicking on the screen influence our ability for experience and attention. The physical manipulations we have to do with a computer, not related to the reading itself, disturb our mental appreciation, says associate professor Anne Mangen at the Center for Reading Research at the University of Stavanger in Norway. She has investigated the pros and cons of new reading devices.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also:
Mind & Brain
Child Development
Language Acquisition
Intelligence
Computers & Math
Computer Science
Mobile Computing
Computer Graphics
Reference
Instructional design
Learning disability
Memory
MRAM
Mangen maintains that reading on a screen generates a new form of mental orientation. The reader loses both the completeness and constituent parts of the physical appearance of the reading material. The physical substance of a book offers tranquility. The text does not move on the page like it does on a screen.

"Several experiments in cognitive psychology have shown how a change of physical surroundings has a potentially negative affect on memory. We should include this in our evaluation of digital teaching aids. The technology provides for a number of dynamic, mobile and ephemeral forms of learning, but we know little about how such mobility and transience influence the effect of teaching. Learning requires time and mental exertion and the new media do not provide for that," Mangen believes.

"We experience to day a one-sided admiration for the potentials in the technology. ICT is now introduced in kindergarten without much empirical research on how it influences children’s learning and development. The whole field is characterized by an easy acceptance and a less subtle view of the technology," the researcher says.

Would you warn against the use of digital teaching material?

"Critical perspectives on new technologies are often brushed aside as a result of moral panic and doomsday prophecies. I will not warn against it, but I think there is generally little reflection around digital teaching material. What we need, is a more nuanced view on the potentials and limitations of all technologies – even of the book. Very often important discussions about technology and learning have a tendency to reduce a complex field to a question about being for or against," Mangen explains.

The development of digital media leads to a need for more sophisticated concepts of reading and writing and a new understanding of these activities.

"Many people say that children read less and not so well as earlier. With which technology do they read less? What types of text do they read less well? What conceptions of reading are we talking about," Anne Mangen asks.

Even if children and young people do not read as many novels in book form any more, one may still argue that they actually read more than before. Most of what they do on a computer or on their cell phones, is exactly reading and writing.

"Swedish researchers believe we understand more and better when reading on paper than when we read the same text on a screen. We avoid navigating and the small things we don't think about, but which subconsciously takes attention away from the reading. Also texts on a screen are often not adapted to the screen format. The most important difference is when the text becomes digital. Then it loses its physical dimension, which is special to the book, and the reader loses his feeling of totality."

Mangen has mainly been looking at hypertext stories. These stories exploit the multimedia possibilities of a computer and use both hypertext, video, sound, pictures and text. They are constructed in such a way that clicking one's way around them comes close to a literary computer game.

As a researcher, Mangen is interested in the physical aspect of reading and applies theories from psychology and phenomenology linked to the relationships between motor functions and attention in order to highlight the difference between reading a novel and a hypertext story.

"The digital hypertext technology and its use of multimedia are not open to the experience of a fictional universe where the experience consists of creating your own mental images. The reader gets distracted by the opportunities for doing something else," Mangen says.

screening versus reading: comments pro and con DANNY BLOOM ANNE MANGEN ALEX BEAM

Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy study to me.Reply | Report Abuse
agenthucky at 04:49 PM on 12/23/08
Just 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.

I 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. Reply | Report Abuse
AZeldenrust at 05:17 PM on 12/23/08
This may explain why i feel a complusion to print out things i want to read off the web.Reply | Report Abuse
liggybee at 09:41 PM on 12/23/08
I 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.

...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. Reply | Report Abuse
sanserene at 10:29 AM on 12/24/08
I tend to agree with agenthucky: "..print is a must for the thought process..".
I 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.Reply | Report Abuse
dcary3133 at 12:19 PM on 12/24/08
"....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
Ziad Sawaf at 01:45 PM on 12/24/08
My 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
hastigo at 03:39 PM on 12/24/08

"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."

Has 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 select all 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 know 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.)
Reply | Report Abuse
hastigo at 04:07 PM on 12/24/08
Anybody interested in an example of the Chaos piece done on open office can contact me for an attachment.

Merry Christmas and stuff, all.Reply | Report Abuse
rocandroll at 04:37 PM on 12/24/08
The following is a direct response to this comment.

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

Online v. print reading: which one makes us smarter?

Dec 23, 2008 02:25 PM in Everyday Science | 16 comments | Post a comment
Online v. print reading: which one makes us smarter?
By Coco Ballantyne in 60-Second Science Blog Online v. print reading: which one makes us smarter?
ShareThis

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."

How does technology impact our ways of thinking?

How does technology impact our ways of thinking?
By Patricia A. Mathews on June 9, 2009 8:09 AM | 4 Comments | No TrackBacks
I love this question for how it impacts my thinking about technology and society and teaching language; it's the wondering about the questions and its answers that is important. This belief is confirmed in Hass, chapter 1. But, to appreciate Hass, I'll share an experience with research on technology and literacy.



In the past semester of teaching a first-year research writing course, a student brought me a blog entry he knew would interest me. It was from the 60-Second Science Blog and reported on research by Anne Mangen of the Center for Reading Research at the University of Stavanger in Norway. The entry "Online v. print reading: which one makes us smarter?" by Coco Ballantyne suggests that "reading online may not be as rewarding--or effective--as the printed word." The reviewer states that learning requires time and mental effort that is not provided by a website and that the physical interaction with the computer is distracting. I was confused, it was research on children's reading. Who was being distracted, how was effort measured? The blog did not include an abstract or link to the study.



There was an alarmist tone to the blog that echoes Plato's issues with writing and Thoreau's issues with the telegraph that are noted by Baron. I was disturbed by the level of fear mongering in the blog and tried to find out more. Another blog, ScienceDaily, reported the same information but under the title "Storybooks On Paper Better For Children Than Reading Fiction On Computer Screen, According to Expert." I did not, or have not yet, located the study itself. However, an interview with the author herself was less controversial. Mangen is calling for more research to understand how technology impacts reading. The blog version of her research questions stated as concerns were design to attract the press. Does the fear-mongering tone balance with call for more public awareness of the issues?



Hass offers a place to more critically consider how technology may impact thinking. The historical, philosophical and cultural perspectives are crucial to understanding the impact of current changes. The interdisciplinary approach she calls for in the second chapter is another important piece of the process of research. This is a sharp contrast to popular media critiques of new multi-tasking practices such as using the cell phone while driving, texting while also having an in-the-flesh conversation with someone else, or sending twitter feeds while participating in a real-time meeting in a bricks and mortar space. I hope the research on technology and thinking is grounded in the complex spaces that Hass outlines and not in the fear that our children will go to hell in a hand basket if they don't turn the pages of paper books. So, I'm not sure how technology impacts thinking but it does and if we, as language teachers and researchers, listen to Cynthia Selfe, we will welcome the opportunity to understand what is happening in our heads and the heads of our students as we engage in more and newer technologies.

Here's another recent take on "Hamlet's Blackberry" by William Powers, soon to be a major new book!

Here's another recent take on Hamlet's Blackberry

http://apo.org.au/commentary/hamlets-blackberry-revisited

Hamlet's blackberry revisited
by Peter Browne in Australia

New research provides some support for William Powers's analysis of the future of print media, writes PETER BROWNE

THE print media will live on because of its limitations as much as its strengths, argues William Powers in Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal, the most-read report on Creative Economy in 2007. For concentrated reading of longer articles, essays and books, free of distractions, there's nothing like this old-fashioned medium, Powers argues -- and he's convinced me.

But what about everyone else? A new US survey conducted for Deloitte by the Harrison Group contains a piece of encouraging news for the print media. ?Nearly three-quarters of respondents prefer a printed version of a magazine even if they could get the same information online,? reports Deloitte. Significantly, that proportion is ?consistent across the generations.? The survey ? summarised in The Future of the Media: Profiting from Generational Differences with some additional detail on the Deloitte website ? involved 2200 individuals aged 13?75.

Three quarters of respondents ?find Internet ads more intrusive than print ads, and 64 per cent pay more attention to print ads than those online,? the survey found, which is an encouraging finding for newspaper proprietors. ?Interestingly, the Gen-X sector (ages 25?41) found online ads more intrusive (79 per cent) than baby boomers (72 per cent). Gen-Xers also paid more attention to print ads (67 per cent) than boomers (65 per cent).? (Powers provides more data on this key point in Hamlet?s Blackberry.)

Meanwhile, the decline in overall newspaper sales seems to be tapering off, or even reversing slightly, in Australia and comparable western countries. In their 2004 book, How Australia Compares, Rodney Tiffen and Ross Gittins showed that the big decline in total newspaper sales in Australia occurred in the 1990s and was mainly driven by the fall in the number of titles as a result of the closure of papers like the Melbourne Herald and the Sydney Mirror. Their figures are in the first three columns of the chart below.

The 2007 edition of the World Association of Newspapers? World Press Trends, which arrived by email overnight, provides the latest circulation figures from around 100 countries, which are in the last column below. Some of the figures seem surprisingly positive, and to some extent will reflect the difficulties of collecting up-to-date information and making international comparisons. But the overall message is that ? in terms of print circulation anyway ? newspapers have at least some breathing space to plan for a difficult future.

One of the ways newspapers are using this breathing space is to develop ways of calculating combined print/online circulation figures. The Australian industry has begun releasing figures simultaneously for print and web but there are practical difficulties in integrating the two sets of figures. To try to come to grips with this problem, the World Association of Newspapers has established the Media Measurement Integration Task Force, an international coalition of media organisations which will ?explore and communicate the opportunities to measure and report newspaper audiences across multiple platforms to newspaper industry stakeholders.?

And one final piece of print news, a reverse colonisation of sorts: The Sunday Times reports that Google Print Ads, currently available in the US, will spread to British papers soon. The ads ? an extension of Google AdWords ? let advertisers ?pick a newspaper online through Google and enter a bid for available advertising space on a given page and day,? reports the newspaper. ?But rather than offering to pay the list price, customers say what they are prepared to pay. Publishers can choose to accept or decline the offer.? ?

A top thinker in the field of "thinking about things" tells me her response to SCREENING.....

Hi Danny,

yes, I read Alex Beam's June 19 column in the Boston Globe on screening, titled I SCREEN, YOU SCREEN, WE ALL SCREEN, [about your idea of using a new word for reading on screens]. My personal opinion is that we are more likely to change the meaning of the word reading, than we are to develop a new word. But I could be wrong...
Ready to be told "i told you so!"

Good luck with this idea, wherever it leads.....

Signed,

_______ ____________

Why I am worried about the increase of screening going on these days on screens, as opposed to real READING on paper surfaces....

Many reporters and bloggers have asked me why I am so worked up about this. Let me explain:

I am worried about the increase of screening, and the decrease of reading on paper, because......it will mean the END of critical thinking, critical analysis, thinking in general, finding meaning in words and opinions and ideas, everything will become a screened BLUR......if it isn't already.... and the future will be a world of tapped tweets and screened screeds, and that's it: the end of civilization as we know it...... with little in-depth intellectual analysis going on...everybody will be greeted each day by screened news feeds and 140-letter microbursts.....Jean-Paul Sarte and Simone De Beauvoir must be rolling over hard in their graves now..... SIGH

THAT is why I am concerned.........I worry that READING will be out, and SCREENING will take over.......that is why I coined the word SCREENING, as a warmin sign, as a wake up call. I do not like the word SCREENING or what it stands for. I am on the side of PAPER. Mr. Paper.

But I fear a screended world is taking over.

The NO-REPLY CREW FOR SCREENING ON SCREENS AS THE NEW READING....

NO REPLIES from: Clay Shirky, Esther Dyson, Howard Weaver, Vindu Goel (well, he did reply but said "we have no intention of ever covering your cockamamie idea"...or something like that, thanks New York Times...), Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch seemingly also not interested, as were Dylan Tweeney at Wird and Alexis Madrigal and everyone else there, Michael Cader at Publishers Lunch ( he wrote to me "STOP!" ), David Pogue and John Markoff and Richard Pena and Brad Stone and Brian Stelter at the Times, Jack Schofield in the UK, along with Robert McCrum and Elizabeth Day there, John Vidal and Victor Keegan, too...... and so it goes, Kurt.

Although Jim Romenesko did link the Beam piece to his Romenesko site at Poynter, so there is hope, still. And Hillel Italie at AP in NYC is rumored to be doing something on this reading/screening thing. Maybe big, too. Stay tuned.

Don't hold your breath. New ideas take time. Most are never heard from again.

Par for the course.

Used to it, I am.

Alex Beam: Computer screen vs. printed page: June 19, Boston Globe column noted at Romenesko Website

from the Boston Globe



|| Alex Beam: Computer screen vs. printed page.
Posted at 10:58 AM on Jun. 19, 2009





http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:euNrkvjuzFAJ:www.poynter.org/q/%3Fid%3DA165464+%22Computer+screen+vs.+printed+page%22+beam&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

Romenesko news website notes Alex Beam column on June 19 in Boston Globe headlined "I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen"

Romenesko news website notes Alex Beam column on June 19 in Boston Globe headlined "I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen"

Poynter Online - Romenesko - 19 Jun 2009 ... LEFT RAIL ARCHIVE · E-mail Romenesko Send letters, memos, and feedback. .... \

Alex Beam: Computer screen vs. printed page. ...
www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45

The future of reading will be "screening" as Mr Paper bids goodbye to the world over the next 50 years..... was nice to know you Mr Paper! Good luck!

PRESS RELEASE:

for immediate release: July 1, 2009
contact: danbloom@gmail.com
Tel: on request


The future of reading will be "screening" as Mr Paper bids goodbye to the world over the next 50 years..... was nice to know you Mr Paper! Good luck!

NEW YORK -- Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - and a blogger we know named Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

Mangen says she thinks there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading.

“Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium called Mr Paper. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

When Kindle-like readers cost less than US$20 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer: Ballmer: All traditional content will be digital in 10 years

Ballmer: All traditional content will be digital in 10 years and we will all SCREENING then....not READING.....

guardian.co.uk

"There won't be newspapers, magazines and TV programs. There won't be personal, social communications offline and separate," says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "In 10 years it will all be online. Static content won't cut it in the future." (He also made those remarks in June 2008.)


Microsoft's Steve Ballmer: Traditional media will not bounce back




He said that within 10 years all traditional content will be digital and yet, Google aside, publishers are failing to generate serious digital revenues.

"All content consumed will be digital, we can [only] debate if that may be in one, two, five or 10 years," added Ballmer.

"There won't be [only traditional] newspapers, magazines and TV programmes. There won't be [only] personal, social communications offline and separate. In 10 years it will all be online. Static content won't cut it in the future," he added.

"Some say that the ad-funded model has not led to profitability. Google's search site makes money but past Google is there a publisher with an ad-funded or fee-based model that has made lots of money? No."

For media businesses to successfully evolve they must provide the right combination of context and relevance to make a compelling online proposition for consumers, according to Ballmer.

"There are problems with digital advertising. Start with content and the website environment and [ask] is it suitable for advertising. [That] question is somewhat in the balance as we move forward," he said.

The old approach of simply trying to replicate a print newspaper online is doomed to fail, Ballmer added.

During a question and answer session after his speech, Ballmer was also asked about Microsoft's interest in acquiring Yahoo.

"We have no interest in acquiring Yahoo. What we have said is that we will continue to remain open to a partnership with Yahoo," he responded.


• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
Printable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us larger | smaller EmailClose Recipient's email address Your first name Your surname Add a note (optional)


Your IP address will be logged
ShareClose Digg reddit Google Bookmarks Twitter del.icio.us StumbleUpon Newsvine livejournal Facebook Mixx it! Contact usClose Contact the Media editor
editor@mediaguardian.co.uk
Report errors or inaccuracies: userhelp@guardian.co.uk
Letters for publication should be sent to: letters@guardian.co.uk
If you need help using the site: userhelp@guardian.co.uk
Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard:
+44 (0)20 3353 2000

Advertising guide
License/buy our content
Media
Steve Ballmer · Cannes Lions 2009 · Advertising · Newspapers & magazines · Television · Digital media · Newspapers
Business
Technology
Microsoft
World news
United States
More newsMore on this story
Zimbabwean turns worthless banknotes into gold

Virgin Atlantic ad is high flyer at Cannes

Cannes Lions festival: Full coverage

Books are better compared to Books Online on Screens

Bound Books Are Better

Books On-Line Pale in Comparison to Real Books


by Barbara Pytel

Dec 25, 2008

Don't throw out those textbooks and library books yet. Researchers have found that technology is not always better.

Email has improved communication between friends and family. Cell phones have improved safety and communication in families. Store scanners, surveillance equipment, GPS and safety features on automobiles have improved our lives. Laptops in schools allow students to create amazing projects. However, reading a book on a computer may not be one of those improvements.

Norwegian Researchers Say Books Are Better Than Computers
Holding a book and turning the pages allows individuals to have an experience with the book. It also helps with attention spans. The scrolling and clicking that is necessary to read a book on a computer is distracting. The reader is more likely to remember information read from a book and less likely to remember if read on a computer screen. Technology does not improve everything in our lives.

Anne Mangen, associate professor at the Center for Reading Research at the University of Stavanger in Norway, believes that the physical appearance of a book offers tranquillity to the reader. "Several experiments in cognitive psychology have shown how a change of physical surroundings has a potentially negative affect on memory. Technology provides for a number of dynamic, mobile and ephemeral forms of learning, but little is known about how such mobility and transience influence the effect of teaching. Learning requires time and mental exertion and the new media do not provide for that," Mangen believes. [ScienceDaily, December 22, 2008]

Paper Wins Over The Screen
Swedish researchers believe that reading on paper is better. The navigation required reading a book on a computer distracts from the written word. Reading a book promotes better understanding than reading from a screen. Mangen also believes that when text is not perfectly adapted to the computer screen, the reader struggles to maintain attention. This can lead to increased problems with comprehension.

Hypertext Stories Decrease Comprehension
Mangen is most critical of hypertext stories. These works use hypertexts, video, sound, and pictures embedded into the text. These stories resemble a computer game more than a written work. Mangen states, "The most important difference is when the text becomes digital. Then it loses its physical dimension, which is special to the book, and the reader loses his feeling of totality."

Ads by Google
Read With Your Child
Use Interactive Reading to Accelerate Language Development
www.ChildUp.comFood Processing Plant
Find & Contact Low-Cost Suppliers Sign up Free, Become an Active User
Alibaba.com


Mangen is especially interested in the relationship between motor functions and attention. The more a reader must do to continue with the reading experience, the more potential there will be to lose comprehension and more opportunities to abandon reading and move on to something else.

Sources:

"Storybooks On Paper Better For Children Than Reading Fiction On Computer Screen, According to Expert" ScienceDaily.com, December 22, 2008.

Anne Mangen’s work, "Digital fiction reading: Haptics and immersion," is published in the Journal of Research in Reading, 2008.

Related article: Homework And TV - A No No



The copyright of the article Bound Books Are Better in Educational Issues is owned by Barbara Pytel. Permission to republish Bound Books Are Better in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.



Reading Real Books Aids Comprehension
Digital Books Are Distracting To The Reader
The Printed Word Has Much Value

Recommend Article!




Print Article
Email Article
View All Articles
How to subscribe to feedsAds by Google
Lucky Numbers?
Whatever your sign is, with your Birthdate I can predict your luck.
www.sara-freder.com/lucky
"My 1 Trick To Lose Fat?"
I struggled for years to burn fat, until I found this 1 secret.
FatBurningFurnace.com/HowIDidIt
Fine Motor Development
Activities to develop hand skills Strengthen fingers, wrists & arms
www.Theraproducts.com
Post Project For Free
Get cheap offers from pros! Freelacers will battle for it.
Vois.com



Post Your Comment

2500 characters left
NOTE: Because you are not a Suite101 member, your comment will be moderated before it is viewable.
What is 7+1?

Comments
Jan 6, 2009 9:26 AMGuest : Thank you for this validation. As a reading teacher, I have found that when students read on a computer, they seem to be more easily distracted. But, when they sit with a book on the carpet, they can sit for longer lengths of time. Some even do not notice other students coming and going because they are so focused. That is not the case in a computer lab. Thank you!
Apr 24, 2009 4:32 PMGuest :
this is very true...the problem comes when you have minds that are so trained to getting information in a split second as they do online - and then go tell them to read a book...yeah right..wont happen...their minds are geared towards the interactive and not the uninteractive...we have raised a generation of minds not geared toward learning the traditional way but geared toward having their information needs met in an instant.

Guess what - a study was already releashed showing how experience changes literal brain chemistry......with more and more people turning to the internet for so much - those experiences are changing our brains - and yes i know all that data as far as how is still under debate..but one thing i am certain of is that it is decreasing our working memory...making for a mind geared more towards distraction and less towards focused concentration.

we havent realized it yet....but this form of a medium has already grabbed hold of the youth and has begun to change their minds. I admit there are those that are more suseptible to such issues with such a medium, we shall begin seing them as time moves forward.



the very definition of what a book is must change for the web to work...books need not be bound..need not have pages..and need not have a front and back - the book becomes bits and pieces of information to take up.

what needs to happen is for the internet to create walls - by walls i mean ways for all those distractions to be contained - without that kids will do no learning online in a true sense and the advantages of the technology that is coming of maturity will be wasted.


Read more: http://educationalissues.suite101.com/topiclist/article.cfm/bound_books_are_better#ixzz0JJz1uUAz&C

Since discovering the Internet in 1993 while working for a newspaper in Tokyo, I've spent some time thinking about some new ideas. Few agree with me!

Themes

Since discovering the Internet in 1993 while working for a newspaper in Tokyo, the things I’ve spent the last dozen or so years thinking through, working on, and writing about have varied widely.

I have been a video producer, editor, , author, consultant, sometimes working with people who wanted to create a purely intellectual or aesthetic experience online, sometimes working with people who wanted to use the internet to sell new ideas.

While doing this work, I have always written about whatever interested me at the time: mostly polar cities and climate change, and my new campaign to coin a new word for the kind of reading we do online on a screen as oppoed to reading on paper. I call the new word: screening.

I have pursued these things with no particular goal other than clarifying for myself what it is I think. There is no grand scheme there, no central goal, no master plan. I have never had an agenda.

As I have gathered these writings together and tried to organize them, however, I have been surprised to see that there are things here that organize these writings, not so much by category as by theme.

If I had to describe what I write about, it would be "the future of humankind in the year 2500".

Or maybe: "The need for a new word to define reading on a screen."

I now recognize in my writings an interest in any systems undergoing an influx of new participants.

More than once, new technologies have held out the promise of wider participation by citizens, only to be corralled by a new set of legal or economic realities, and the Internet, which threatens many vested interests all at once, will be no exception.

SEE HERE:
--
POLAR CITIES:
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com

YOUTUBE DAN BLOOM: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/your-dot-meet-the-neighbors/?apage

Do we need a new word for the kind of reading we do on a screen?

Do we need a new word for the kind of reading we do on a screen?

by Danny Bloom
OPED

"Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the
printed page?" Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam asked readers in a
recent article.

From most of the research that has come in so far from academics in
North America and Europe, the answer is yes, although not everyone's
in agreement with what it all means.

For me, what is means is that we need a new word for reading on
screens. I have therefore coined the neologism "screening". Of course,
not everyone agrees with me. Are you reading this oped piece in the
Globe or are you screening it online?

When I asked Anne Mangen, associate professor
at the National Center for Reading Research and Education at the
University of Stavanger in Norway, what she thought about the word
screening for reading on a screen, she told me by email: "My first
impression is that the term 'screening' is adequate in some
respects, but not in others. It's adequate to the extent that it
points to certain differences in the reading mode which has to do with
the display nature, the central bias of a screen compared to a page of
print text (our gaze is naturally oriented towards the center), and
the image-like character of modalities (we tend to read a screen
spatially, in contrast to the page which we linearly)."

But Mangen, who is one of the leading researchers in her field and who
published an important paper last December in the Journal of Research
in Reading in Britain, also said that "screening" is not adequate
"insofar as it does not discriminate between different kinds of
screening -- we can also screen a print text (scan, filter, skim,
etc.), and we perceive different kinds of screens differently (compare
the TV with the cell phone, the e-book with the laptop)."

Coco Ballantyne, writing for Scientific American online about Mangen's
paper, noted: "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."

Dr Mangen, in her paper, listed a few reasons that reading on paper
and reading on a screen are two different animals.

* Reading on a screen is not as rewarding -- or effective -- as
reading printed words on paper.

* The process of reading on a screen 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.

* The visual happenings on a compter screen and our physical interaction
with the entire device and its set ip can be distracting. All of these things
tax human cognition and concentration in a way that a book or
newspaper or magazine does not.

* The experience of reading a book or a newspaper or a magazine is
both a story experience and a tactile one.

The jury's still out on just how different reading on paper is
from reading on a screen, but the public discussions in the blogsphere
are getting interesting.

Richard Long of the International Reading
Association based in Delaware, told Scientific American that in his opinion
"more research needs to be done to study the effects of online
reading on different users .. [and noting that] ....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."

In the meantime, as the experts conduct more research and write more
academic papers, I have a hunch that we will need a new word someday
for reading on screens. It probably won't be "screening", but it's a good word
to get people thinking.

When I asked James Fallows, an editor at large for the Atlantic
Monthly, what he thought about the term, he told me that while the
word was interesting, he was "not likely
to be an early
adopter of "screening" -- and he listed two reasons.

"First, there is already and established and different meaning of
'screening' that
could easily be confused here," Fallows said by email. "The
meaning I have in mind is similar to
'skimming,' 'reviewing,' 'categorizing' -- going through material
quickly to assess its importance, as opposed to fully concentrating on and
absorbing it."

He 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 your idea. I am not opposed to it, but this
is why I'll
stick with 'reading' myself."

So, dear Reader, are you reading this in the Globe today or are you
screening this online? I would love to hear your answers [at
danbloom@gmail.com].

--------------------------------------

Danny Bloom, a 1971 graduate of Tufts, is a freelance writer.

Erick Schonfeld, not very receptive on this: TECHCRUNCH

Erick erickschonfeld@gmail.com
to Dan Bloom danbloom@gmail.com


Dude, stop spamming everyone. HE DID NOT SPECIFY WHO IS EVERYONE. MAYBE ERICK IS EVERYONE?

Sent from his iPhone

Then Erick wrote back to me, after I asked him to reconsider, and he wrote:

[words that cannot be mentioned in a family blog]

What's wrong with TechCrunch these days? NO WAY To treat your readers.....jeez...

Vindu Goel to me - "Hi, Danny. Good luck on your campaign, but Bits doesn't plan to write about it..."-- NEVER?

Vindu Goel to me
show details 11:11 PM (22 minutes ago) Reply



Hi, Danny. Good luck on your campaign, but Bits doesn't plan to write about
it.

And please don't spam unrelated posts on Bits with comments pushing this
idea - I deleted several comments you submitted this morning.

Thanks.

Vindu

Vindu Goel
Deputy Technology Editor
The New York Times
620 Eighth Ave., 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10018
Tel. 212-55...
Email: vindu@nytimes.com

Of course paper will never die,

[1]
Posted by: Wayne R. Porter May 26, 2008 - 06:38PM
Phoenix, Arizona
Of course paper will never die, but its use in publishing will be largely displaced by digital publications with interactive movable type, an empowering software invention that will change the relationship between people and text – change the way people read and write. Interactive movable type will enable everyone to read and, eventually, will enable most readers to become superreaders. More importantly, it will enable the less-developed countries to move rapidly to full literacy at costs they can afford. A Web page entitled "Interactive Movable Type: Invention of the Millennium? " discusses this new movable type and can be seen at http://mudoc.com/invenofmill.htm.

[2]
Posted by: Ernie Garner May 30, 2008 - 06:26PM
Lake Villa, Il
If you had talked to typographers you would have known that the paper vs electronics problem is NOT one of portable technology but resolution.


Traditional printing uses fully formed characters, either metal or photo negative. The equivalent pixel resolution is 1200 dpi. While the lower resolutions, i.e. 72 dpi of a VGA display are readable, they are also more fatiguing to the eye. Historically, the higher resolution of the printed page has allowed typographers to develop fonts that guide the eye and are comfortable enough to allow us to read hundreds of pages at a time with minimal fatigue.


(To give an analogy, CB radio's are great for short informal communication. Whether one would want to use it to listen to a lecture on quantum mechanics is another story.)


At 1200 dpi an 8" x 10" printed page would have to have 9600 x 12000, or 115.2 million pixels. The display would have to have that many discrete cells as well as their drive transistors. While the average Intel CPU may have many more devices, they are all located on a small piece of pure silicon. Spreading that many devices over an 8" x 10" non-intrinsic substrate that can bend would be a hell of a technological feat.


Even if a company produces a small portable display, if it runs at SVGA resolutions, it won't be something you want to use for serious reading. You'll get more comprehension if you print it out (600 dpi) and read the paper.

[3]
Posted by: Paul Krupin October 22, 2008 - 08:36PM
Kennewick, WA
To think that the paper book is dead is silly.

Paper will likely be with us as the preferred communication medium for most people for many years to come.

Yes, there are more and more electronic publishing technologies and they are getting easier to use. But most people still prefer paper for most reading purposes.

Electronic files and snippet technologies will continue to grow in use. eBooks and related book alternatives will also grow, but the technology limitations and usability issues have yet to persuade and convince the masses that paper is no longer necessary.

Creatives and those that sell intellectual property just need to adapt to the new product delivery methods and offer the creative works in every possible and profitable way.

That's what makes sense anyway. If people want it and are willing to pay for it then by all means go ahead and give it to them.

I screen, you screen, we all screen

I screen, you screen, we all screen

Boston Globe - Boston,MA,USA

When writing about digital reading - blogger is pushing the
neologism “screening,'' for reading on the screen - Mangen, Nielsen, ...

http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2009/06/19/paper_vs_computer_screen

Hamlet's Blackberry

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!

Danny Bloom

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!

Jason Pontin

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!

James Fallows

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!

John Markoff

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!

Ashlee Vance

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!

Alex Beam

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!

Danny Bloom

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!

William Powers

Alex Beam writes: "I screen, you screen, we all screen"...Reading on paper versus reading on a screen, let the debate begin....
I screen, you screen, we all screen

By Alex Beam [national newspaper columnist]

Globe Staff / June 19, 2009

Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we read on the printed page? It’s an interesting question.

Before hearing from the experts, let’s review what we think we know. Even the best computer screens are harder on the eyes than the paper page is. Jakub Nielsen, a Web usability researcher, reports that we generally read 25 percent more slowly on the screen. I read more quickly on the screen and edit out about 40 percent of what appears before my eyes. If you haven’t told me what you want by line four of your e-mail, trust me, I didn’t get the message.

A Norwegian researcher, Dr Anne Mangen, recently weighed in with an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions - clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads - take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.

Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’

When writing about digital reading - blogger Danny Bloom is pushing the neologism “screening,’’ for reading on the screen - http://zippy1300.blogspot.com -- Mangen, Nielsen, and others focus on the issue of distractibility. How can schoolchildren really read at computer terminals, scholars argue, knowing that more interesting Web pages are just a few clicks away? But don’t dedicated reading devices like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle change this equation?

Nielsen agrees that Kindle is trying to out-book the book. He argues that Kindle reading can be even more immersive than book reading: “All you are aware of is the next page, you don’t get this feeling that you are coming to the end of the book. It’s like being plunged directly into the author’s content.’’

I asked Mangen via e-mail if she thought there might be a future convergence of Kindle reading and Gutenberg reading. “Reading digital text will always differ from reading text that is not digital (i.e., that has a physical, tangible materiality), no matter how reader-friendly and ‘paper-like’ the digital reading device (e.g., Kindle etc.),’’ she answered. “The fact that we do not have a direct physical, tangible access to the totality of the text when reading on Kindle affects the reading experience. When reading a book we can always see, and feel with our fingers and hands, our progress through the book as the pile of pages on the left side grows and the pile of pages on the right side gets smaller. At the same time, we can be absolutely certain that the technology [the book] will always work - there are no problems with downloading, missing text due to technical or infrastructure problems, etc.’’

She says the e-reader experience introduces “a degree of unpredictability and instability’’ that influences reading, even if we are not aware of it.

Two years ago, media critic William Powers wrote a romantic defense of the ancient medium I publish in. His essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ was widely quoted by journalists, of course. Mr. Paper - he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’

Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered - not yet.’’

Two years ago, I might have agreed. If I had a daughter, yes, I would send out her wedding invitations on paper, not on Evite. (America has many daughters, hence a future for mail carriers.) But for books, magazines, and newspapers, “eternity’’ is a long time. When Kindle-like readers cost less than $50 and the e-Ink technology is not just very good, but excellent, there may be more “screening,’’ and less reading, in our future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His email address is beam@globe.com
© Copyright 3009 Globe Newspaper Company If the NYTimes does not sell it. OUCH!