Paper Value
A Norwegian researcher, Anne Mangen, wrote 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.’’
http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2009/06/19/paper_vs_computer_screen/
The materiality of paper takes on a extended meaning due to its experience. The knowledge that is contained with in a book is not singularly wrapped up in the words on the page. From psychology class in college at Colorado State University, I remember my teacher telling us that our brains formulate knowledge and recall through repeating similar experiences under which that knowledge was learned. For example if you are juiced up on coffee while you study for a test you should be juiced up on coffee during the test because the brain associates the experience of the learning along with the recall of that information. Similarly you might be able to recall a story in a book more vividly when the same circumstances are repeated. The engagement of content influences our learning and subsequent recall. Therefore the reading of a book is learned through the experience of the pages. Knowledge that is engaged in the physicality of pages is then linked with that experience. Pages then become essential to formulation of knowledge within a book.
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.’’
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3562724/Hamlets-Blackberry-Why-Paper-Is-Eternal
The digital medium has been attempting to replace the piece of paper and it has been around the corner in terms of technology since technology began. Now what if the digital medium and the physical medium where equal? When paper and computer work together seamlessly then paper takes on an added functionality with the computer.
The digital textbook?
With students doing so much of their reading assignments through the screen instead of on book or paper formats, it’s important for educators to determine how the shift is altering their habits and learning. The research is just beginning, but it’s getting deeper, an article in the Journal of Research in Reading (2008, pp. 404-419) by Anne Mangen, “Hypertext fiction reading: haptics and immersion.” Mangen notes the growing sub-field of screen reading studies, but finds that the “intangibility and volatility of the digital text” remain under-examined. She focuses first, then, on the material nature of digital and non-digital reading experiences. “Unlike print texts,” she writes, “digital texts are ontologically intangible and detached from the physical and mechanical dimension of their material support, namely, their computer or e-book (or other devices, such as the PDA, the iPod or the mobile phone” (405).
This is important, she argues, because “materiality matters.” The reading experience includes manual activities and haptic perceptions (what the skin and muscles and joints register), and so as activities and perceptions of that kind are changed from one kind of reading experience to another because of the object, the reading experience, too, will change.
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Screen-ReadingPrint-Re/8551/
So if materiality matters in the delivery of content especially reading material, then it would be arguable that to remove the materiality of paper from the reading experience would fundamentally alter that exchange. Screen engagement has become a reality in modern times but the advantages of the screen have forced its usability right next to the book forcing them to go head to head. I have chosen to regard these experience as different and explore a way to bridge the difference between experiences. As use of screen based devices increases, the need for physical interaction with objects like books will become essential in the recombination of content delivery. I believe users should not have to exchange one experience for the other in order to engage in the content the way they would like. Many things in this world have multiple experiences and with the linking physical and digital is opens up a strategy and platform for making printed content and digital content work together.
John Locke said, “reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” Thinking can be greatly enhanced through digital means of networking so making paper and computer work together will greatly enhance the opportunity to make reading our again.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
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AN INTERVIEW WITH DR ANNE MANGEN IN NORWAY ON READING ON PAPER AND
READING ON SCREENS
conducted by Danny Bloom in Taiwan (August 15, 2009)
Anne Mangen is a reading specialst at the National Centre for Reading Research and Education at Stavanger University in Norway, and a paper she published in late 2008 in the UK on the differences betweem reading on paper and reading on screens has catapulted her to the forefront of the debate on this very controverisal topic.
In a recent email interview, I asked Dr Mangen to go over some of the
issues involved here. As some readers might know, I have been advocating that society adopt a new word for reading on screens, since I feel screen reading is so different from reading on paper, and I feel that with a new word we can study the differences better — and point out the differences better, too — and I have gently, quietly suggested the word “screening” to mean “reading text on a screen”. Of
course, not everyone agrees with me; and even Dr Mangen does not agree with me, even though it was her 2008 academic paper that got me started on this quixotic quest. But that’s okay. I respect Dr Mangen highly, and I still consider her my mentor on all this.
When I asked her that since reading on paper is very different from reading on screens, does she think that at some point we might need a new word in English for “reading on screens”, she replied: “Not really, because I doubt that one single word is able to denote the complexity of the process in any accurate and useful way.”
Dr Mangen went on: “The term “reading” is already a general term
covering a range of very different processes on different cognitive
and perceptual levels, undertaken in a range of different situations,
with a vast number of different textual material. As well as
non-textual material, when one talks about “reading faces”, or
“reading the next move in a game of chess. When talking about
reading, there always follows a requirement to supply more precise and
narrower concepts to clarify what aspects of the reading process and
experience we are currently talking about, and this requirement is no
different whether we read on paper or on screen (or on any other
device). ”
She added: “I think the main dichotomy might remain that between
“screen reading” and “print reading”, and then one will have to employ
add-on and ad hoc clarifications and specifications of these general
concepts, such as for instance scrolling and hypertextual reading as
instances of screen reading, and turning the page when print reading.”
“Moreover, terms like scan, skim, browse, and close-read apply equally
as well to screen reading as to print reading. What is interesting is
what terms and processes such as these actually entail in the two
different reading conditions (i.e., reading on screen and print). And
this is what has to be specified additionally, I think, instead of
replacing the generic term “reading” with “screening”as you suggest,
Danny, — which will be too un-nuanced and indistinct and hence, not
very useful — at least not scientifically,” she said.
“In general, I should add that I am critical to unnecessary
neologizing, as I think that too much research (particularly in the
arts and humanities) is about creating new words and concepts where
they are not needed, hence taking the focus away from discussing
substance and content of theoretical arguments and developments to
rather focusing on rhetoric and language,” she added.
When I mentioned to Dr Mangen that my concept behind using the word
screening to try to capture the fact that the experience of reading on
a screen is fundamentally different from reading on paper — and not a
priori worse or better; just different, she agreed, saying: “Yes, the
experience of reading on a screen is different from reading on paper;
although in what ways and to what extent must be specified in each
instance, situation and purpose of reading.”
But she added: “However, whether reading on a screen is better or
worse than reading on paper depends on a range of variables — the
reader’s prior experience with both formats, the purpose and situation
of the reading act, the type and genre of text, the disposition of the
reader, and other variables.”
When I told her that I wanted to introduce the word screening as a new
word for reading on screens in order to draw attention to the vast
literary shift that is washing over us right now, as we speak, and if
she agreed that we are now witnessing a vast literary shift, Dr Mangen
replied: ” Yes, I would say that the current shift from paper to
screen represents a vast literary shift, the implications of which –
short-term and, in particular, long-term — we are not yet aware of.”
I asked Dr Mangen if she feels, as I do, that reading on screens might
hamper or hinder the critical analysis skills of what pepople are
readingsne replied:
“This question is a too general – but very important also–and it
cannot be dealt with in such a general, either/or manner, as you
phrase it. The precise reading situation, context, purpose, kind of
text, reader dispositions, device characteristics, and other
vairables, would have to be specified in order to yield any
constructive and interesting answers to your question. So your
question is too general, but it’s an important one.”
I asked Dr Mange a specific question, asking her: “If in the future
most reading is done on screens, from computers to iPhones to Kindles
to even textbooks on screens, could this hurt the critical thinking
skills of young people to think, analyze and assess information?”
Dr Mangen replied: “It’s tempting to answer with the cliché, and say
that only time will tell, but I do think it is appropriate and
important to raise these critical questions, over and over — even at
the risk of being marginalized as a Luddite, Danny. Maryanne Wolfe at
Tufts University in Boston raises this issue, too, from a
cognitive/neuroscientific point of view, in her excellent book “Proust
and the Squid”, which I highly recommend to you.”
Finally, I asked Dr Mange if she was willing or ready to say goodbye
to Mr. Paper and greet the Screen Age with a completely open-minded
welcome, she said: “No, at least not when it comes to the educational
aspects of reading.”
So it goes. I was in Taiwan tapping on my computer keyboard in a
computer lab at a local university, since I don’t even own a computer
and never have, and she was on the other side of the world in Norway,
on summer vacation, and I felt it was a good interview, a very good
interview indeed. I learned a lot.
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