9 ms·

Reading texts on paper versus computer screen: Effects on reading comprehension [pdf] (2012)

200 points by sturza 2y ago

dsq 2y ago
I can read something on screen ten times and not have it make any impression. Paper is much better for me personally.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  Yes, this is me as well. Reading on paper is so much easier and faster for me, and my reading comprehension is substantially higher as compared to reading on a screen. Even an e-paper screen. I had long thought that this is because I'm old enough that for a huge portion of my life, most of my reading was on paper and people a generation or two younger than my wouldn't see the same disparity. This paper, however, seems to indicate that this may not be the whole story.
- genocidicbunny 2y ago
  Maybe somewhat related but I also find that if I'm taking notes, I retain things much better if I handwrite them. Often I don't even need to refer to my handwritten notes because I can remember them, which is almost never the case with typed notes. And interestingly, it's specifically handwritten notes in pen. When I use a pencil it's much more like just typing them out.
- ivansavz 2y ago
  Me too. I do a lot of text editing on a daily basis and I find I gain at least +10 IQ points when I print out the text and review on paper. My colleague swears by her iPad, but I always go the paper route.
dostick 2y ago
The big question is, e-ink screens, how are they?
- wellthisisgreat 2y ago
  Very curious as well - I use Supernote A5X for PDFs and sometimes I reach to the edge of the screen to try to turn a page
- tpmoney 2y ago
  My own personal experience is I hate reading any long form material on a computer or tablet screen. Something about the experience was both painful and didn’t seem to work with how I read. I bought a used e-reader on a lark at a flea market to try it out and picked up reading as a hobby again. Even with the newer backlit e-readers the experience is much different. As a first guess I would say: * “Paper like” looks, including slightly blurred text (since e-ink pixels aren’t square) * Mostly reflective lighting and softer lighting when backlit * Dedicated and simple UI * Perhaps most importantly singly consumable, individual and discrete chunks of readable text Are all factors in making this a better experience. E-pubs that can reflow their text and so that each “page” is rendered legibly and in full are great experiences. Reading fixed format PDFs is better than on a tablet but not as good as an epub
  - trueismywork 2y ago
    Have you tried using redshift?
    - tpmoney 2y ago
      I have, and still find normal computer screens to just not work for reading long form content for me, even reading an epub in an epub app on a normal computer screen/tablet still feels off
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        Might be refresh rate, have you tried a faster monitor/screen? I know some people despise 60Hz screens because they're too slow and they notice the flickering.
- safety1st 2y ago
OnorioCatenacci 2y ago
There's a bit of irony in reading a text about printed vs. digital text in a digital text.
- tasuki 2y ago
  My comprehension of it was very low.
- ikaros02 2y ago
  Nobody's stopping me from printing it
jawilson2 2y ago
My kids are in middle and high school, and they all have school-issued 13 in chromebooks. None of them have print text books, they are all online. I HATE studying with them, because of this. It is a nightmare to try to read a physics or math textbook; there is so much space taken by chrome, the book UI, etc, and the book usually displays full screen. Or, you zoom in, you can see 1 paragraph and half a figure, and can't turn the page. Then, you switch tabs back to your homework, also digital, and can't view the book. God forbid I show them how to tile the windows side by side, but even if you did, the book would be even smaller, and the hw questions run off the side and don't wrap. It is unbearable. I resort to digging out my 20+ year old college engineering and math textbooks for physical references. The kids don't seem to mind it too much, but it is all they have ever known.
- manishsharan 2y ago
  Glad to know I am not the only parent who feels this way. On a personal note, I am one of those people who highlights sections of text books using different coloured markers and scribbled notes on the margins. During my final exam time, my revision of materials was very efficient. I am not sure how to teach my kids these skills.
  - lugu 2y ago
    You can try to teach them to use a good pdf reader. At work there are a lot of Google doc to review. I always convert them to PDF so that I can have private annotations, named bookmarks and highlights of different colors (I can even diff between two versions). This way I am building a collection of PDF I can locally search. On this topic, computers are great to make flashcards. Instead of the paragrahed notes, when learning material, I am taking note in the form of short Q&A using markdown flashcards. Works great for me. Easy to review efficiently, easy to extend. This said, I am not sure this is adapted to kids. Hope you share your skills to your kids.
    - reflexco 2y ago
      What's your good pdf reader of choice? And do you use any software to organize your collection, or just the filesystem?
bbstats 2y ago
N=72
- yas_hmaheshwari 2y ago
  This is blasphemous The answer, as is with everything, was N=42 :-)
Refreijn 2y ago
I find reading texts on a 13 inch (3200x1800, 276 ppi) laptop easier to remember than on a 42 inch (3840x2160, 104 ppi) monitor. Reading takes more effort as text isn't as clear on the big screen. Been waiting for 42 inch 8k monitors since 2017. There's a 55 inch IPS on the horizon (ASRock PG558KF). Does anyone have experience reading text on 8K VA panels like Samsung QN700B?
- HPsquared 2y ago
  27 inch 4K screen is a reasonable compromise, I find (163 ppi). Display scaling is a must, but same on laptop display. I guess a larger screen is like having more pages on your desk at once.
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  I think there comes a point where a monitor is too big, at least if it's not curved. But a 276ppi monitor would bother me--nice for the text, but controls don't seamlessly adjust for ppi and typically do not adjust at all. This machine has one 27" monitor that I frequently use for games, video etc, but that's pretty much all I use it for, rarely do I do text based things on it.
heinternets 2y ago
I definitely prefer being able to scroll with trackpad and keyboard vs physical pages. I wonder if any followup studies have been done on this.
Karellen 2y ago
(2012)
est 2y ago
I believe digital reading could be more benifitial if better media were applied. This 2012 study invited "72 tenth graders read texts as PDF on a computer screen", which is simply bad. For example, people spent hours exploring wikipedia, this could never be done with physical paper. I often find myself looking for Ctrl+F button holding a book. Interactive textbooks were posted on HN many times, like you can alter a numerical input and see graphs chaning in real time. This helps a lot for kids with limited imagination. These days I can't live without an AI assistant. While reading, it's just so convenient just to ask. The AI might be wrong from time to time, so keep a critical mind, the AI is immensely helpful for foreign-language materials and complex acedemical papers.
- jvan 2y ago
  >For example, people spent hours exploring wikipedia, this could never be done with physical paper. I must not understand what you're saying here. I'm envisioning someone reading an article, seeing a reference to something unfamiliar, then stopping to read another article in a nearby source about that thing or any other random topic, recursing for hours. This is easily done, and often was by children a few decades ago, with any encyclopedia set.
  - est 2y ago
    > This is easily done ... with any encyclopedia set I get your point, the problem is that, a good set of encyclopedia is NOT available to every household everytime, it takes lots of space and storage. You can't go to a park with a set of encyclopedia, on the other hand, an iPad with offline wikipedia, navigating by clicking links is much, much easier than stacking many, many opened books on your fixed desk.
bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
I've only read the abstract. One thing I would like to read about is, if the phenomenon is real what's the mechanism for it. Is it that people on screen have the tendency to change tab to look at memes every other paragraph? Is it that they associate screens with entertainment, and even without acting on it the brain gets too lazy? Or what?
jll29 2y ago
This study [Mangen, Walgermo and Brønnick (2012)] should be replicated with adult subjects and N=500 instead of just N=72 kids from a single class. In Sweden, based on similar results sub-notebooks and tables that were only recently introduced were removed again. I respect the Swedish for reacting on the new evidence instead of being in denial that the purchase of so much hardware was a mistake. I write, read, and review scientific papers throughout the year, and most of the time, I will print them out (sometimes over one hundred pages for a single conference - e.g. 10 papers a 10 pages). The clearest benefit is reading mathematical formulae on paper vs screen, from my subjective experience, but also the ability to scribble notes, turn back the page to re-read something to double-check without much effort. As much as I like computers, paper is the most ingenious medium ever invented by humankind, and the second most durable w.r.t. long-term preservation of the written word (after parchment).
- deskamess 2y ago
  > the ability to scribble notes, turn back the page to re-read something to double-check without much effort. I agree 100%. The simple act of turning back the page/pages is so fast and efficient. My brain seems to even remember where on the page the info I want is. So much more is visible in a single 'eye-shot'. I don't get that same mental experience with e-docs - not sure why. I did grow up with paper so there is a bias.
  - mannykannot 2y ago
    I had not thought about the paging-back issue until you mentioned it, but I recognize in myself what you have said about it. Our brains and sensorimotor systems are developed for direct interaction with the physical world, not through proxies (though we can get pretty good with decent proxies through practice.) On the other hand, being able to search is invaluable, as is the ability to have the footnote pages open in a separate window, if the software does not provide a better option. Finally, I can't imagine a good interface that is not pencil-like for sketching diagrams.
  - xwowsersx 2y ago
    I agree. For novels, digital works well—I have hundreds of books on my Kindle. But recently, while studying a math book, I bought the paperback for exactly the reason you mentioned.
peterbonney 2y ago
Plausible result, but considering that this HN post is appearing on the same day as one of the top posts is about scientific fraud… let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I say it all the time: provocative experimental results should be considered fraudulent until the raw data is shared, and then spurious until replicated.
- samatman 2y ago
  I would put this only slightly differently: experimental results should be considered unpublishable without the raw data, and irrelevant until replicated.
simonw 2y ago
In somewhat delicious irony, I find this PDF almost unreadable on my iPhone screen due to the tiny font. Hah: “The students were randomized into two groups, where the first group read two texts (1400–2000 words) in print, and the other group read the same texts as PDF on a computer screen.” Maybe they should try the experiment again using a non-hostile format for presenting information on a computer. (In case anyone else was wondering about resolution, this 2012 study used 15” LCDs at 1280x1024 running Windows XP - so definitely not retina.)
- wrs 2y ago
  It’s double ironic because it’s not very readable on paper either! The line length is way too long. If it were in HTML you could fix that.
  - LorenPechtel 2y ago
    Yup. A piece of paper is too wide for comfortable reading. Two columns works much better.
red_admiral 2y ago
I'm a book person through and through. Crafting Interpreters is an example of how a textbook can be when someone really puts the effort in, I know there's also a free PDF version but the paper book is well worth the price. E-readers like the remarkable are getting closer, but that one's banned by some of our clients until they hire someone who understands security.
axpy906 2y ago
Maybe add “2012” to the title as that is when the study was done.
throwpoaster 2y ago
My kids’ tomes don’t even have vellum! They use paper! Next they’ll be printing them with moveable type instead of illuminating them. Kids today!
drivebycomment 2y ago
I mostly stopped reading paper books, as I do almost all book reading through Libby app on my tablet that has a high resolution display like most tablets produced in the past few years. It's a superior experience than a paper book in almost every way. At work and home, with 4k monitor, it's so much easier to put multiple reading materials side by side and read / research across. In 2012, even on the state of the art computer systems, the reading experience wasn't as good as it is now.
nrvn 2y ago
As someone who spent 6 years at the uni in the first half of 2000’s having access to the mixture of printed and digital materials, and as someone who has to read tons of different formal and informal docs on a daily basis, I can firmly say I don’t care about the results of this study and at least they are irrelevant to me. You need to get your tasks done, research and learn anything? Use whatever medium is available and fits your needs best and allows you to yield better results in a shorter timespan. I won’t bother printing some programming language documentation and I miss the ability to search through text in printed books. That being said, printed books smell good, and I enjoy the typographic excellence of them every time I grab a real book.
atum47 2y ago
I've been reading digital image processing by Gonzalez and I must be honest: the sheer thickness of the book makes it very hard to handle (especially lying in bed). As others pointed out already, I do miss the ability of search the text. Good book though
- imgabe 2y ago
  The index is how you’re meant to search a paper book.
dr__mario 2y ago
I would love to know what happens with e-ink devices then. I feel this test is doing many things at once and the conclusion may not carry to e-ink (it's easier in the eyes, you can scribble...)
kgbcia 2y ago
What about eink
joshdavham 2y ago
I feel like I've known this intuitively for years, but have never been able to properly explain it to others. For example, when I was in university (2015-20), all my lecture notes were available as pdfs, but I would just always print them anyway while the other students would read them on their devices. And when I learned French, I only bought physical books and never even once tried an e-reader. Paper is just easier to understand!
mhagiwara 2y ago
Here's a more recent meta analysis: Delgado et al., 2018. Don't throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X18300101 https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X18300... "Paper-based reading yields better comprehension outcomes than digital-based reading."
User23 2y ago
A typical textbook gives me around an 11x17 display area with better than retina resolution and a refresh limited only by the speed of my optic nerve. That’s about the usable area of a 27” monitor after all the UI trash has taken its share of space. And of course, it leaves my monitor free for practicing whatever it is I’m trying to learn from the book. Alt tabbing is a terrible experience comparatively. Glancing at the text takes the time of a saccade and uses visual memory, leaving my short term memory free for concepts and working memory. Obviously get a good book holder that you can stand next to your monitor(s).
dev_0 2y ago
[dead]
corank 2y ago
My hypothesis is that the PDF format bears much blame here. The results might be very different if the material is in a reflowable format like an epub or a web page. If you think about it, the notion of a page exists only because of the physical limitations of the paper medium, and PDF is page-centric only because it was designed to represent printable materials. There's no reason to stick to pages anymore if the material is to be consumed on a screen, and PDF is therefore also the wrong choice for this.
nomadiccoder 2y ago
[2012]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

200 points by sturza 2y ago

dsq 2y ago

I can read something on screen ten times and not have it make any impression. Paper is much better for me personally.

JohnFen 2y ago
Yes, this is me as well. Reading on paper is so much easier and faster for me, and my reading comprehension is substantially higher as compared to reading on a screen. Even an e-paper screen. I had long thought that this is because I'm old enough that for a huge portion of my life, most of my reading was on paper and people a generation or two younger than my wouldn't see the same disparity. This paper, however, seems to indicate that this may not be the whole story.
genocidicbunny 2y ago
Maybe somewhat related but I also find that if I'm taking notes, I retain things much better if I handwrite them. Often I don't even need to refer to my handwritten notes because I can remember them, which is almost never the case with typed notes. And interestingly, it's specifically handwritten notes in pen. When I use a pencil it's much more like just typing them out.
ivansavz 2y ago
Me too. I do a lot of text editing on a daily basis and I find I gain at least +10 IQ points when I print out the text and review on paper. My colleague swears by her iPad, but I always go the paper route.

dostick 2y ago

The big question is, e-ink screens, how are they?

wellthisisgreat 2y ago
Very curious as well - I use Supernote A5X for PDFs and sometimes I reach to the edge of the screen to try to turn a page
tpmoney 2y ago
My own personal experience is I hate reading any long form material on a computer or tablet screen. Something about the experience was both painful and didn’t seem to work with how I read. I bought a used e-reader on a lark at a flea market to try it out and picked up reading as a hobby again. Even with the newer backlit e-readers the experience is much different. As a first guess I would say: * “Paper like” looks, including slightly blurred text (since e-ink pixels aren’t square) * Mostly reflective lighting and softer lighting when backlit * Dedicated and simple UI * Perhaps most importantly singly consumable, individual and discrete chunks of readable text Are all factors in making this a better experience. E-pubs that can reflow their text and so that each “page” is rendered legibly and in full are great experiences. Reading fixed format PDFs is better than on a tablet but not as good as an epub
- trueismywork 2y ago
  Have you tried using redshift?
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    I have, and still find normal computer screens to just not work for reading long form content for me, even reading an epub in an epub app on a normal computer screen/tablet still feels off
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      Might be refresh rate, have you tried a faster monitor/screen? I know some people despise 60Hz screens because they're too slow and they notice the flickering.
safety1st 2y ago

OnorioCatenacci 2y ago

There's a bit of irony in reading a text about printed vs. digital text in a digital text.

tasuki 2y ago
My comprehension of it was very low.
ikaros02 2y ago
Nobody's stopping me from printing it

jawilson2 2y ago

My kids are in middle and high school, and they all have school-issued 13 in chromebooks. None of them have print text books, they are all online. I HATE studying with them, because of this. It is a nightmare to try to read a physics or math textbook; there is so much space taken by chrome, the book UI, etc, and the book usually displays full screen. Or, you zoom in, you can see 1 paragraph and half a figure, and can't turn the page. Then, you switch tabs back to your homework, also digital, and can't view the book. God forbid I show them how to tile the windows side by side, but even if you did, the book would be even smaller, and the hw questions run off the side and don't wrap. It is unbearable. I resort to digging out my 20+ year old college engineering and math textbooks for physical references. The kids don't seem to mind it too much, but it is all they have ever known.

manishsharan 2y ago
Glad to know I am not the only parent who feels this way. On a personal note, I am one of those people who highlights sections of text books using different coloured markers and scribbled notes on the margins. During my final exam time, my revision of materials was very efficient. I am not sure how to teach my kids these skills.
- lugu 2y ago
  You can try to teach them to use a good pdf reader. At work there are a lot of Google doc to review. I always convert them to PDF so that I can have private annotations, named bookmarks and highlights of different colors (I can even diff between two versions). This way I am building a collection of PDF I can locally search. On this topic, computers are great to make flashcards. Instead of the paragrahed notes, when learning material, I am taking note in the form of short Q&A using markdown flashcards. Works great for me. Easy to review efficiently, easy to extend. This said, I am not sure this is adapted to kids. Hope you share your skills to your kids.
  - reflexco 2y ago
    What's your good pdf reader of choice? And do you use any software to organize your collection, or just the filesystem?

bbstats 2y ago

N=72

yas_hmaheshwari 2y ago
This is blasphemous The answer, as is with everything, was N=42 :-)

Refreijn 2y ago

I find reading texts on a 13 inch (3200x1800, 276 ppi) laptop easier to remember than on a 42 inch (3840x2160, 104 ppi) monitor. Reading takes more effort as text isn't as clear on the big screen. Been waiting for 42 inch 8k monitors since 2017. There's a 55 inch IPS on the horizon (ASRock PG558KF). Does anyone have experience reading text on 8K VA panels like Samsung QN700B?

HPsquared 2y ago
27 inch 4K screen is a reasonable compromise, I find (163 ppi). Display scaling is a must, but same on laptop display. I guess a larger screen is like having more pages on your desk at once.
LorenPechtel 2y ago
I think there comes a point where a monitor is too big, at least if it's not curved. But a 276ppi monitor would bother me--nice for the text, but controls don't seamlessly adjust for ppi and typically do not adjust at all. This machine has one 27" monitor that I frequently use for games, video etc, but that's pretty much all I use it for, rarely do I do text based things on it.

heinternets 2y ago

I definitely prefer being able to scroll with trackpad and keyboard vs physical pages. I wonder if any followup studies have been done on this.

Karellen 2y ago

(2012)

est 2y ago

I believe digital reading could be more benifitial if better media were applied. This 2012 study invited "72 tenth graders read texts as PDF on a computer screen", which is simply bad. For example, people spent hours exploring wikipedia, this could never be done with physical paper. I often find myself looking for Ctrl+F button holding a book. Interactive textbooks were posted on HN many times, like you can alter a numerical input and see graphs chaning in real time. This helps a lot for kids with limited imagination. These days I can't live without an AI assistant. While reading, it's just so convenient just to ask. The AI might be wrong from time to time, so keep a critical mind, the AI is immensely helpful for foreign-language materials and complex acedemical papers.

jvan 2y ago
>For example, people spent hours exploring wikipedia, this could never be done with physical paper. I must not understand what you're saying here. I'm envisioning someone reading an article, seeing a reference to something unfamiliar, then stopping to read another article in a nearby source about that thing or any other random topic, recursing for hours. This is easily done, and often was by children a few decades ago, with any encyclopedia set.
- est 2y ago
  > This is easily done ... with any encyclopedia set I get your point, the problem is that, a good set of encyclopedia is NOT available to every household everytime, it takes lots of space and storage. You can't go to a park with a set of encyclopedia, on the other hand, an iPad with offline wikipedia, navigating by clicking links is much, much easier than stacking many, many opened books on your fixed desk.

bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago

I've only read the abstract. One thing I would like to read about is, if the phenomenon is real what's the mechanism for it. Is it that people on screen have the tendency to change tab to look at memes every other paragraph? Is it that they associate screens with entertainment, and even without acting on it the brain gets too lazy? Or what?

jll29 2y ago

This study [Mangen, Walgermo and Brønnick (2012)] should be replicated with adult subjects and N=500 instead of just N=72 kids from a single class. In Sweden, based on similar results sub-notebooks and tables that were only recently introduced were removed again. I respect the Swedish for reacting on the new evidence instead of being in denial that the purchase of so much hardware was a mistake. I write, read, and review scientific papers throughout the year, and most of the time, I will print them out (sometimes over one hundred pages for a single conference - e.g. 10 papers a 10 pages). The clearest benefit is reading mathematical formulae on paper vs screen, from my subjective experience, but also the ability to scribble notes, turn back the page to re-read something to double-check without much effort. As much as I like computers, paper is the most ingenious medium ever invented by humankind, and the second most durable w.r.t. long-term preservation of the written word (after parchment).

deskamess 2y ago
> the ability to scribble notes, turn back the page to re-read something to double-check without much effort. I agree 100%. The simple act of turning back the page/pages is so fast and efficient. My brain seems to even remember where on the page the info I want is. So much more is visible in a single 'eye-shot'. I don't get that same mental experience with e-docs - not sure why. I did grow up with paper so there is a bias.
- mannykannot 2y ago
  I had not thought about the paging-back issue until you mentioned it, but I recognize in myself what you have said about it. Our brains and sensorimotor systems are developed for direct interaction with the physical world, not through proxies (though we can get pretty good with decent proxies through practice.) On the other hand, being able to search is invaluable, as is the ability to have the footnote pages open in a separate window, if the software does not provide a better option. Finally, I can't imagine a good interface that is not pencil-like for sketching diagrams.
- xwowsersx 2y ago
  I agree. For novels, digital works well—I have hundreds of books on my Kindle. But recently, while studying a math book, I bought the paperback for exactly the reason you mentioned.

peterbonney 2y ago

Plausible result, but considering that this HN post is appearing on the same day as one of the top posts is about scientific fraud… let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I say it all the time: provocative experimental results should be considered fraudulent until the raw data is shared, and then spurious until replicated.

samatman 2y ago
I would put this only slightly differently: experimental results should be considered unpublishable without the raw data, and irrelevant until replicated.

simonw 2y ago

In somewhat delicious irony, I find this PDF almost unreadable on my iPhone screen due to the tiny font. Hah: “The students were randomized into two groups, where the first group read two texts (1400–2000 words) in print, and the other group read the same texts as PDF on a computer screen.” Maybe they should try the experiment again using a non-hostile format for presenting information on a computer. (In case anyone else was wondering about resolution, this 2012 study used 15” LCDs at 1280x1024 running Windows XP - so definitely not retina.)

wrs 2y ago
It’s double ironic because it’s not very readable on paper either! The line length is way too long. If it were in HTML you could fix that.
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  Yup. A piece of paper is too wide for comfortable reading. Two columns works much better.

red_admiral 2y ago

I'm a book person through and through. Crafting Interpreters is an example of how a textbook can be when someone really puts the effort in, I know there's also a free PDF version but the paper book is well worth the price. E-readers like the remarkable are getting closer, but that one's banned by some of our clients until they hire someone who understands security.

axpy906 2y ago

Maybe add “2012” to the title as that is when the study was done.

throwpoaster 2y ago

My kids’ tomes don’t even have vellum! They use paper! Next they’ll be printing them with moveable type instead of illuminating them. Kids today!

drivebycomment 2y ago

I mostly stopped reading paper books, as I do almost all book reading through Libby app on my tablet that has a high resolution display like most tablets produced in the past few years. It's a superior experience than a paper book in almost every way. At work and home, with 4k monitor, it's so much easier to put multiple reading materials side by side and read / research across. In 2012, even on the state of the art computer systems, the reading experience wasn't as good as it is now.

nrvn 2y ago

As someone who spent 6 years at the uni in the first half of 2000’s having access to the mixture of printed and digital materials, and as someone who has to read tons of different formal and informal docs on a daily basis, I can firmly say I don’t care about the results of this study and at least they are irrelevant to me. You need to get your tasks done, research and learn anything? Use whatever medium is available and fits your needs best and allows you to yield better results in a shorter timespan. I won’t bother printing some programming language documentation and I miss the ability to search through text in printed books. That being said, printed books smell good, and I enjoy the typographic excellence of them every time I grab a real book.

atum47 2y ago

I've been reading digital image processing by Gonzalez and I must be honest: the sheer thickness of the book makes it very hard to handle (especially lying in bed). As others pointed out already, I do miss the ability of search the text. Good book though

imgabe 2y ago
The index is how you’re meant to search a paper book.

dr__mario 2y ago

I would love to know what happens with e-ink devices then. I feel this test is doing many things at once and the conclusion may not carry to e-ink (it's easier in the eyes, you can scribble...)

kgbcia 2y ago

What about eink

joshdavham 2y ago

I feel like I've known this intuitively for years, but have never been able to properly explain it to others. For example, when I was in university (2015-20), all my lecture notes were available as pdfs, but I would just always print them anyway while the other students would read them on their devices. And when I learned French, I only bought physical books and never even once tried an e-reader. Paper is just easier to understand!

mhagiwara 2y ago

Here's a more recent meta analysis: Delgado et al., 2018. Don't throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X18300101 https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X18300... "Paper-based reading yields better comprehension outcomes than digital-based reading."

User23 2y ago

A typical textbook gives me around an 11x17 display area with better than retina resolution and a refresh limited only by the speed of my optic nerve. That’s about the usable area of a 27” monitor after all the UI trash has taken its share of space. And of course, it leaves my monitor free for practicing whatever it is I’m trying to learn from the book. Alt tabbing is a terrible experience comparatively. Glancing at the text takes the time of a saccade and uses visual memory, leaving my short term memory free for concepts and working memory. Obviously get a good book holder that you can stand next to your monitor(s).

dev_0 2y ago

[dead]

corank 2y ago

My hypothesis is that the PDF format bears much blame here. The results might be very different if the material is in a reflowable format like an epub or a web page. If you think about it, the notion of a page exists only because of the physical limitations of the paper medium, and PDF is page-centric only because it was designed to represent printable materials. There's no reason to stick to pages anymore if the material is to be consumed on a screen, and PDF is therefore also the wrong choice for this.

nomadiccoder 2y ago

[2012]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]