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I believe this is simple conditioning. There are many people like me who learn better from ebooks, online-papers and pdf's rather than dead-tree books. We can a

I believe this is simple conditioning. There are many people like me who learn better from ebooks, online-papers and pdf's rather than dead-tree books. We can annotate, attach notes, add/remove highlights and most importantly: search without needing a painful index and simultaneously study 2 or more books on the same subject with little trouble in shifting context. With paper books, all this is very painful - too much jugglery needed.

kd5bjo 7y ago
To each his own, I guess. With the exception of search, I can do all of those things more easily in a physical book than electronically — I find that the physical motion and context helps me remember things. I replace searching with maintaining my own comprehensive index. It forces me to think about what I’ve read and consider the situations in which it might be useful so that I can file it away correctly. I read fewer things this way, but they stick in my memory better, for probably a similar net result.
- readarticle 7y ago
  I wonder if there’s a correlation between usage of debuggers vs printf, and the different strategies you all have taken towards reading.
sq_ 7y ago
I don't disagree that it could be conditioning. You make really good points about the benefits of doing things digitally. At some point I really need to spend a few months going all-in on doing it digitally and see if I can make it work for me. Definitely an area where everyone works differently and it takes serious effort to figure out what's best for you personally.
- dr_zoidberg 7y ago
  I think there's a bit of a problem when directly taking content thought for a specific medium, like physical books, and transporting it unchanged to another media, like ebooks. Quick example: when you're reading a book, you have always two pages available to yourself to read. When you read an ebook, you have one, or part of one page on the screent at a time. That doesn't lend itself to going back and re-reading. A physical book has the chance to keep our attention on a larger scale than an ebook. But lets twist that example. When I was in primary school, one of my brightest classmates had a severely impaired vision. He'd had to practically stick his face into a book or sheet of paper to read. Probably a large screen with adjustable fonts, and good contrast, would help him read. I think we need to find a new balance to how we consume written media. But I wouldn't cry that books are disappearing, rather I think "old books" do not adjust so well to screens, and that "screen books" lend themselves to ways that old-written-media couldn't do. We need a new balance to get the best from both worlds, and have an improved medium to read from.
ntsplnkv2 7y ago
I've found all of these things to be unhelpful compared to just having a notebook next to my book, the added writing down of information helps me retain information better. I question the benefit of search beyond finding a sentence or two. Most large ideas require more than a sentence or two to explain something, and ignoring the context before and after could limit my understanding.
- frosted-flakes 7y ago
  In any case, most substantial non-fiction books have both a table of contents and an index.

kd5bjo 7y ago

To each his own, I guess. With the exception of search, I can do all of those things more easily in a physical book than electronically — I find that the physical motion and context helps me remember things. I replace searching with maintaining my own comprehensive index. It forces me to think about what I’ve read and consider the situations in which it might be useful so that I can file it away correctly. I read fewer things this way, but they stick in my memory better, for probably a similar net result.

readarticle 7y ago
I wonder if there’s a correlation between usage of debuggers vs printf, and the different strategies you all have taken towards reading.

sq_ 7y ago

I don't disagree that it could be conditioning. You make really good points about the benefits of doing things digitally. At some point I really need to spend a few months going all-in on doing it digitally and see if I can make it work for me. Definitely an area where everyone works differently and it takes serious effort to figure out what's best for you personally.

dr_zoidberg 7y ago
I think there's a bit of a problem when directly taking content thought for a specific medium, like physical books, and transporting it unchanged to another media, like ebooks. Quick example: when you're reading a book, you have always two pages available to yourself to read. When you read an ebook, you have one, or part of one page on the screent at a time. That doesn't lend itself to going back and re-reading. A physical book has the chance to keep our attention on a larger scale than an ebook. But lets twist that example. When I was in primary school, one of my brightest classmates had a severely impaired vision. He'd had to practically stick his face into a book or sheet of paper to read. Probably a large screen with adjustable fonts, and good contrast, would help him read. I think we need to find a new balance to how we consume written media. But I wouldn't cry that books are disappearing, rather I think "old books" do not adjust so well to screens, and that "screen books" lend themselves to ways that old-written-media couldn't do. We need a new balance to get the best from both worlds, and have an improved medium to read from.

ntsplnkv2 7y ago

I've found all of these things to be unhelpful compared to just having a notebook next to my book, the added writing down of information helps me retain information better. I question the benefit of search beyond finding a sentence or two. Most large ideas require more than a sentence or two to explain something, and ignoring the context before and after could limit my understanding.

frosted-flakes 7y ago
In any case, most substantial non-fiction books have both a table of contents and an index.