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
Reading Future
February 22nd, 2010 § 7 comments § permalink
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/09/technolog/tablet_ebooks_media.fortune/index.htm
The Fortune Article ” the Future of Reading” poses some relevant questions?
Question 1: Will anyone be willing to pay for content delivered to a tablet when they can get information for free on the web?
Question 2: But aren’t tablets just a better way to browse the web?
Question 3: Reading? Reading is dead.
Question 4: How will tablet-based ads work better than the web?
Question 5: Can traditional publishing companies reorganize and move fast enough to embrace and serve new platforms?
these questions all poise the options as if the book and the screen are binary. Print media is looked as a being obsolete due to the advancement of screen based tablets. Granted the pervasive nature of digitized content will have a large impact on printed materials. This effect has already stated to take its toll when it comes to newspaper media. How ever like Red heads in America, their kind is not going to dissappear. Book and printed material might start to diminish but then is begs the question just as the question poised above, what is a book when it can exist on a screen?
This question requires going back to the nuanced history of printed material in bound and sequenced form and taking note of its ability to become ubiquitous and why? The screen and the book will never be the same thing as one is fundamentally material based ie pages and ink while the other is silicon driven ie the screen. Each of these forms is a media delivery device and technology. (Although many might not consider books a technology when compared to a computer) Each media format has its own place, use factors, acceptance, penetration into society, and distribution. Each is equally unique to its time and space and each is locked in a continuum that links the two in weave of consumerism, knowledge, and social contextuality. The screen experience would not be capable without the book, and the book would not be producible in contemporary terms with out a computer.
I have asked my self through out this process, why do we consider physical books and digital book and being so different. Why when you buy a physical book do you not receive the digital part also? It seems to me that if you could link the physical with the digital it would allow each of there forms strenghts and affordances to work together rather then in opposition. The simplicity of sequential pages bound together has a unique experience that can only be mimicked by the screen and the social and networking capabilities of a screen require the dynamics of that different system. What are the implications of making print and screen work together, well hopefully it will lead to more productive use of materials and a platform for a larger connection of information directed at specific context.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Tangible Media’s Demise?
December 10th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
- Microsoft (an Edelman client) yesterday opened up a store to sell all of its software online for immediate download (November 13)
- Apple is selling record numbers of downloadable games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This is attracting publishers because the lack of physical media is better economically for both consumers and video game creators (November 12)
- Oprah sparked a deluge of traffic when she endorsed the Amazon Kindle as the next big thing (November 3)
- Lots of alternatives are emerging for ebooks including the iPhone (November 3)
- Microsoft is set to open up the XBox 360 to user-generated games on November 19, all of which will only be available via download – there will be no DVDs (October 30)
- Netlfix is making its catalogue available over the Internet and on set-top boxes like the XBox 360 and soon TiVo (October 30)
- The Christian Science Monitor said it is folding its daily print edition in favor of moving it online (October 28)
(Resources from Steve Rubel http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/11/the-coming-end.html)
The bullet list is a few examples of technologies and media delivery platforms that currently or will in the future deminish print media’s market share or potentially eliminate it all together. Print Media platformes of books, magazines, posters, etc etc are talked about in term of being Tangible Media.
The description of tangible is defined as capable of being perceived especially by the sense of touch.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tangible
The materiality of paper and ink in all is variety from newsprint to gompy has earned print media the use of that terminology with in its description. Media delivery devices like the kindle, the iphone etc are tangible. To suggest that they are not assumes that the ability to touch a screen ie a pixel is not equal with that of prior physical object (artifacts) like books for instance.
The reasoning behind referencing print material as “Tangible Media” and technologies like the Kindle as being something different is really located with in the process of experience. Tangible when describing a book is referencing the experience a user has engage with that media type for the time they were a child to current interactions. Paper has texture, color, smell, it can be flooded and imprinted or debossed the list goes on and on. Tangible becomes a catch all for the experience of turning pages in a seqential artifact and emcompasses the notions of age, use and variety. When tangible is used for the iPhone, Kindle or technologies, it is used more as a description of functionality of the interface. Because a screen is just pixels that can be anything, the experience of that tangible experience is fundimentally different then that of the experience with print media, and rightly so!
The issue is then the expectation that a book can be on a screen and contain the same experience? There is a compromise when “tangible media” is traded for “tangible pixel”, the experience of the can only be mimicked or hinted at through acknologment in either direction. The ability to have animated turning pages in a pdf is an example of a media type not sure how to accept its “pixel” nature because a pixel can never be a piece of paper.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Media Chopping Block : Sport Illustrated
December 8th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
As technologies become more and more pervasive, print media companies are starting to jump on the bandwagon that a screen is a “better” way to experience their content. With the techno world buzzing about the possibilities of tablet computers from Apple, Microsoft, and prototype Joojoo
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/07/apples-1-2-billion-tablet-computer/
JooJoo Hands On Demo from Gizmodo on Vimeo.
, media providers rather then improving or increasing content awareness are opting for the screen. The demo of the Sports Illustrated magazine on a tablet is a interesting view into the possibilities of their future content. Complete with page turning sounds and multi-touch options the demo shows some potential in eliminating the magazine. I mean why would I buy print when I can get it on a screen? Soon enough we will never have old used magazines that can be rummaged through at our uncles “the sport nuts” house.
The introduction of the iPhone has truely had immense impact on the acceptance of interacting with the screen. I just see the thinking of “You know what is better than an iPhone, A bigger iPhone!” faulty. The iPhone functionality and pervasiveness is seen in the Joojoo demo utilizing similar learned interactions from the existing phone. Technology is iterative and for innovation to exist predecessors have to come before, I am having a hard time coping with the innovation of phones replacing the innovations that print has made since the invention of the printing press.
The experience of print material on a screen starts to include video options and some level of costume interactions which is what makes interaction with screen objects effective and engaging but is that functionality worth the tangible interaction with printed paper. Interactions with the tablet are all learned and idiosyncratic rather than the free form and intuitive interactions with the pages of a magazine. The ease of getting to page 22 in a magazine is much different than the action to do that same thing on a tablet. Especially a magazine like SI where a users is less inclined to read from front to back (unless we are talking about the swim suit issue of course) Regardless the SI interactive has some interesting potential but in my opinion will never become a replacement for the greatest bathroom reading since the Victoria Secret Catalog (unless it can become waterproof.) I just don’t see a tablet computer replacing the magazine rack in the bathroom no matter how interactive and engaging it is.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Touch Interaction
November 16th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Engaging users with an interaction is a difficult process. I am attempting to engage users in natural mapped interactions through iconography the associats a particular action of touch. Natural mapping is a term for the proper and natural arrangements for the relations between controls and their movements to the outcome from such action into the world. Like that of a door knob or a book.The real function of natural mappings is to reduce the need for any information from a user’s memory to perform a task. This term is widely used in the areas of human-computer interaction (HCI) and interactive design discussed in Donald Norman’s book : The design of Everyday Things.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Interaction Experiments
November 16th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Through out my experimentation with conductive inks and screen printing, I have started to try and engage the user in interaction with the tangible printed artifact. Paper and ephemeral material is inherently tangible and physical you can bend it, tear it, crinkle it, touch it plus it has a texture a quality and a materiality very unique to its form. Unique to the conductive inks is there ability to engage a user. The current experiment is a test to see if certain form structures are inherently engage-able. With out any signage does a user know to touch the paper and interact with the strips. This experiment utilizes the nature the higher contact equals a brighter light.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Kindle Library_ An Educational Hinderance
November 16th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink
http://phillipian.net/article/8535
As technology become more and more ubiquitous, instances of technological over hauls should not be a process that should shock and awe. There has not been a revolt from the users of land line telephone into cell phones, or slide ruler calculator users to digital calculators, but still when I hear about the replacement of libraries with digital e-readers it makes me cringe. I want to stand up and revolt. The notion that a digital e-reader can replace the library in my opinion is in accurate. After hearing a story on NPR about schools and universities decisions to replace their libraries with internet cafe’s and Kindles made me very sad for the quality of learning. Technology has the ability to make incredible advances in knowledge space and context but to say that a networked screen is a more effective alternative to quantifiable, tangible, and accessible knowledge contained in a library is completely wrong. The internet is not a big library and a library is not the internet. They work and operate at different levels.
The affordance of a library is one that has impacted knowledge gathering for centuries and is something that intrinsically contained with in a architectural space. An e-reader has the infinite space of the internet where connected can be adhock and the quality of the linked material is maintained souly by a computer algorithm. Since a library utilizes space, the ability to reference books to the left right and behind a particular search allows for much more access to serendipitous connections where as on the internet and networked experience the knowledge is only as good as the question poised to the search engine. The spacial and tangible nature of books is the aspect that I think is completely ignored by the universities, schools, and institutes that think printed knowledge is on its way out. A kindle is not a table in a library nor it is a shelf with spacial hierarchy it is data Zeros and Ones transmitted over wireless signals.
While doing research I may have to opportunity at a library to have multiple sources on a table at once and have the opportunity to make connections between content purely due to the spacial juxtaposition. Try and accomplish this on a kindle or a web browser or wikipedia and the limitations will astonish the user.
I believe the movement to contain library data with in a e-reader illuminates the spacial aspect of learning and reference material. The idea that the e-reader and the library are in opposition is in my opinion faulty thinking and fails to consider the unique affordances of library use and of e-reader use. The two are not equal and therefore should not be the replacement for the other.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Circuit Dipper
November 9th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
Now the conductive inks that I have made work, I have started to dive into breaking the perception of what a circuit should be and should look like. With the addition of user interaction, turning a light on becomes more interesting and engaging. The earlier experiments are mostly a process of seeing and thinking about paper differently, this is a experiment into giving paper an added interaction through the conductive ink and the simple switches. The form of the conductive lines are skewing the efficiency ideas associated with circuit board design, and the interaction allows the user to piece together the shapes of both the form and of the shape the lights make.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Conductive Form
November 8th, 2009 § 33 comments § permalink
Now that I have gotten an ink that can conduct an current over a relatively decient distance, I have started to play with the notion of what can a circuit look like. Can it be anything you want it to be as long as there is a positive and negative in and out. Can the form start to speak about it functionality, can the forms be unique and artistic rather than function based. Most circuitry disappears and becomes invisible. To most who use electronics and understanding of the work, skill, craft, and planning that has gone into a majority of the things they operate on a daily basis is pretty minimal. Electronics work and we rarely pay attention until they stop working. An interest in involving conductive ink is to challenge the expectation and visibility of otherwise invisible things. The mixed media piece of conductive ink, copper tape on paper is an experiment into changing and evaluating the expectations of electronic conductivity and use.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Conductive Screenable Ink
November 8th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink
I finally have had some success with screen printing conductive ink or my own concoction. The image is a picture of a mixed media experiment with screen printed graphite based conductive ink and copper tape for power and light source. The form of the line printed in the conductive ink is the shape of a book spine based RFid. The RFid market is one of the largest outcomes of printed circuitry but the implications of “big brother” tools leaves the novice and consumer out of the loop. My experimentation into conductive inks has not been rooted in invention but rather in the exploration space and thinking that I have now started to give paper. The question of networked, self aware and linked paper artifacts could be a possibility through RFid or other circuitry based functionality. My ability to get a screen printed line to be reactive to electricity has helped my pursuit into thinking about paper in a new and unique ways. The ability to make paper an interface is now a distinct possibility.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
