
Is it just me, or eyes react differently to ebooks and real books? - akabaka777
I&#x27;ve noticed for a long time that my eyes can never retrace quickly where i was in a eBook if i look away for even a second. Yet for physical books i can do it quickly after relatively long time. Any science behind this?
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yesenadam
[Not science:] Hmm maybe because holding the book in your hands gives you
physical coordinates in addition to the visual landmarks. An onscreen ebook is
behind glass, removed from all senses but vision. I just watched Bret Victor's
_Humane Representation of Thought_ talk yesterday, which is extremely relevant
- wanting media (of communication, information work, programming) to involve
more of our senses and abilities. Books are a huge advance over PDFs in that
way. Touch them, doodle on them, argue back in the margins... Although the
smell and sound of a book aren't used to deliver information, if books had no
smell or made no sound, they'd be much more like ebooks.

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akabaka777
I really enjoyed the talk and it was very relevant thanks. But the speakers
vision is almost improbable in my opinion. Not because it's not possible but
because the target consumers won't bother for it. Majority of population are
already out of touch of their senses with how they use technology. Kinda like
how the VR is now marketed, even though the initial ideas blew everyone's
minds.

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akabaka777
"Mangen et al. say that this is because paper gives spatio-temporal markers
while you read. Touching paper and turning pages aids the memory, making it
easier to remember where you read something. Having to scroll on the computer
screen makes remembering more difficult."

[https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.236/](https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.236/)

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marvindanig
Absolutely!

Page turns pace you down and it leads to better attention and retention.
Offers retraceability, kind of like a memory palace building exercise.

Also, books are not files. So what we've online isn't truly a piece of
software inspired off of books. Ebooks are like those enterprise-y TPS reports
that no one wants to read. :-)

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cimmanom
Are you using a backlit screen or e-ink?

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akabaka777
backlit screen. I heard of e-ink for the first time from you

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cimmanom
Yeah, backlit screens are much harder to read on than paper. I believe there
have been studies done on this. E-ink e-readers are awesome for e-books. Very
similar to the printed page experience, tho there’s still some work to be done
on color and contrast.

