3 ms·

While not reading in the visual sense, the smartphone is a transformative device for audiobooks and podcasts. When a publisher provided a choice between a PDF

by adolph 3y ago

While not reading in the visual sense, the smartphone is a transformative device for audiobooks and podcasts. When a publisher provided a choice between a PDF of a book and a physical copy, I would usually ask for the PDF, because I didn’t want my house to fill up with books that I might end up not reading. . . . now I encounter nearly every written work, regardless of its length, quality, and difficulty, on the small screen of my iPhone. That sounds awful.

micromacrofoot 3y ago
It's not so bad as long as it's formatted well and adjustable (varies by app, and of course... some PDFs are just terrible due to weird static formatting). I have an endless number of books to read no matter where I am.
ghaff 3y ago
Whatever the actual device I use to read it--which is typically not a phone--I really don't especially want a bunch more paper in my house that I'll have to get rid of.
- wholinator2 3y ago
  Huh, personally i believe the improved experience of a physical book is worth the small hassle of owning a bound stack of paper. That and i also have a love for owning a personal library. If something isn't worth keeping than I'll get rid of it but I'll always give a book a chance to make it to my shelf. I'm kind of a book hoarder though, I've been learning to let go more recently.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I travel a lot and a lot of the time reading on an e-device is actually better than a stack of paper in a poorly-lit location. So, if it's basically flowing text or even lots of things like a guidebook increasingly, I don't have a lot of interest in the bound paper. I've been culling my house of a lot of paper.
082349872349872 3y ago
> because I didn’t want my house to fill up with books that I might end up not reading. It takes all kinds to make a world? On the other hand, I had friends who resorted to moving when first their apartments, then their house, filled up with unread books. (they got them in bulk from library sales, and left all the resulting duplicates by the door for guests to take home)
scoofy 3y ago
I mean... there is nothing sacred about the physical manifestation of a book. You can always print and bind a PDF if you want. It's remarkably inexpensive to do that these days. I've long hypothesize that people's love of art is inextricably tied to thing-ness. That is, art-lovers are often obsessed with the physical manifestation of the underlying art (music: vinyl album, painting: physical painting, sculpture: physical sculpture). I became interested in this art thing-ness idea in this during the renaissance of 3d printing a couple decades ago, when I saw so many incredible sculptors online, that seemed to get zero attention, because there was no "original" to go see in a museum... but you could just print one at home. My favorite artist during that era was Dizingof: https://www.youtube.com/@dizingof/videos https://www.youtube.com/@dizingof/videos
- eldaisfish 3y ago
  This is not true. Reading in print has lots of benefits, particularly for learning and comprehension, as opposed to reading on a screen. Beyond the simplest level of comprehension, reading in print has clear and proven benefits. This became very obvious during the pandemic. Here is a good article with several citations: https://theconversation.com/why-we-remember-more-by-reading-especially-print-than-from-audio-or-video-159522 https://theconversation.com/why-we-remember-more-by-reading-... >The discrepancies between print and digital results are partly related to paper’s physical properties. With paper, there is a literal laying on of hands, along with the visual geography of distinct pages. People often link their memory of what they’ve read to how far into the book it was or where it was on the page. >But equally important is mental perspective, and what reading researchers call a “shallowing hypothesis.” According to this theory, people approach digital texts with a mindset suited to casual social media, and devote less mental effort than when they are reading print.
  - scoofy 3y ago
    Firstly, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with books. I'm saying they are not explicitly necessary. I actually went through the article, and don't find the citations extremely compelling (especially when the author is selling a book, and also with the the lack of a bibliography was quite frustrating), but I'm it's compelling that research in that field is warranted. The theory seems to suggest that reading on your phone primes you to be in a certain mental state, but that argument means that a dedicated ereader would be an entirely reasonable alternative.

by adolph 3y ago

micromacrofoot 3y ago

It's not so bad as long as it's formatted well and adjustable (varies by app, and of course... some PDFs are just terrible due to weird static formatting). I have an endless number of books to read no matter where I am.

ghaff 3y ago

Whatever the actual device I use to read it--which is typically not a phone--I really don't especially want a bunch more paper in my house that I'll have to get rid of.

wholinator2 3y ago
Huh, personally i believe the improved experience of a physical book is worth the small hassle of owning a bound stack of paper. That and i also have a love for owning a personal library. If something isn't worth keeping than I'll get rid of it but I'll always give a book a chance to make it to my shelf. I'm kind of a book hoarder though, I've been learning to let go more recently.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I travel a lot and a lot of the time reading on an e-device is actually better than a stack of paper in a poorly-lit location. So, if it's basically flowing text or even lots of things like a guidebook increasingly, I don't have a lot of interest in the bound paper. I've been culling my house of a lot of paper.

082349872349872 3y ago

> because I didn’t want my house to fill up with books that I might end up not reading. It takes all kinds to make a world? On the other hand, I had friends who resorted to moving when first their apartments, then their house, filled up with unread books. (they got them in bulk from library sales, and left all the resulting duplicates by the door for guests to take home)

scoofy 3y ago

I mean... there is nothing sacred about the physical manifestation of a book. You can always print and bind a PDF if you want. It's remarkably inexpensive to do that these days. I've long hypothesize that people's love of art is inextricably tied to thing-ness. That is, art-lovers are often obsessed with the physical manifestation of the underlying art (music: vinyl album, painting: physical painting, sculpture: physical sculpture). I became interested in this art thing-ness idea in this during the renaissance of 3d printing a couple decades ago, when I saw so many incredible sculptors online, that seemed to get zero attention, because there was no "original" to go see in a museum... but you could just print one at home. My favorite artist during that era was Dizingof: https://www.youtube.com/@dizingof/videos https://www.youtube.com/@dizingof/videos

eldaisfish 3y ago
This is not true. Reading in print has lots of benefits, particularly for learning and comprehension, as opposed to reading on a screen. Beyond the simplest level of comprehension, reading in print has clear and proven benefits. This became very obvious during the pandemic. Here is a good article with several citations: https://theconversation.com/why-we-remember-more-by-reading-especially-print-than-from-audio-or-video-159522 https://theconversation.com/why-we-remember-more-by-reading-... >The discrepancies between print and digital results are partly related to paper’s physical properties. With paper, there is a literal laying on of hands, along with the visual geography of distinct pages. People often link their memory of what they’ve read to how far into the book it was or where it was on the page. >But equally important is mental perspective, and what reading researchers call a “shallowing hypothesis.” According to this theory, people approach digital texts with a mindset suited to casual social media, and devote less mental effort than when they are reading print.
- scoofy 3y ago
  Firstly, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with books. I'm saying they are not explicitly necessary. I actually went through the article, and don't find the citations extremely compelling (especially when the author is selling a book, and also with the the lack of a bibliography was quite frustrating), but I'm it's compelling that research in that field is warranted. The theory seems to suggest that reading on your phone primes you to be in a certain mental state, but that argument means that a dedicated ereader would be an entirely reasonable alternative.