
The Deep Space of Digital Reading - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-deep-space-of-digital-reading-rp
======
hoodwink
Ever since I lost my physical library of books to a fire, I've been an
e-reader zealot. There are so many advantages: instantly start reading
virtually book you want, effortlessly take digital highlights and annotations,
carry a whole library in your pocket while you travel, read at night while
your partner is asleep... I could go on.

As an e-reader evangelist, I've encountered all kinds of resistance. In fact,
it's the norm. There is a widespread emotional, aesthetic attachment to
physical books. To me, it's purely irrational. My favorite author, Nassim
Taleb, tries to explain it:

> Whenever I sit on an airplane next to some businessman reading the usual
> trash businessmen read on an e-reader, said businessperson will not resist
> disparaging my use of the book by comparing the two items. Supposedly, an
> e-reader is more “efficient.” It delivers the essence of the book, which
> said businessman assumes is information, but in a more convenient way, as he
> can carry a library on his device and “optimize” his time between golf
> outings. I have never heard anyone address the large differences between
> e-readers and physical books, like smell, texture, dimension (books are in
> three dimensions), color, ability to change pages, physicality of an object
> compared to a computer screen, and hidden properties causing unexplained
> differences in enjoyment.

The only shortcoming of e-reading, in my opinion, is the inability to display
the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in your home or
office. You can tell so much about a person by their library. I've been
testing some solutions to this problem.

~~~
ashark
> The only shortcoming of e-reading, in my opinion, is the inability to
> display the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in
> your home or office. You can tell so much about a person by their library.
> I've been testing some solutions to this problem.

1\. Can't re-sell, 2. tend to be significantly more expensive to begin with
(no used market), 3. annotations, footnotes and such tend to be much worse, 4.
often have severe formatting/editing issues (see: all the 1-star reviews for
many books on Amazon, which are often full of "book's fine, but don't get the
kindle version, it's terrible"), 5. lending can be tricky 6. two-pages-at-a-
time and page-flipping is a really stellar interface that e-readers don't even
come close to beating, 7. relatedly, use of spatial memory help with real
books in a way they don't in ebooks, 8. on that line of though, shelved books
aren't just for showing off: they can aid memory, and their arrangement can
even help with finding related content and with learning (my literature is
arranged chronologically for those reasons—I learn and reinforce some
information just by existing in the same room as my books, basically), 9. can
only have one book active per device. Switching is a PITA.

Ebooks' main selling points AFAIK are 1. space (admittedly a huge advantage!),
and 2. full text search (OK, but not _that_ great—there's such a thing as an
index in most books for which this is seriously important, which will usually
be _better_ than full-text search). They're worse in just about every other
way (though, again, the space thing is _really_ nice)

~~~
a3n
> 1\. Can't re-sell, 2. tend to be significantly more expensive to begin with
> (no used market)

Huge loss to society. We've lost a lot of things that we loved over the
millenia, and we're still around. But I regret the eventual extinction of used
(and new) bookstores. So many hours, sniffing those books and listening to the
bell ring when the door opens ...

My coffee cup is sitting on a purpose-built book shelf housing a set of The
Great Books, both bought used at the dearly departed Shorey's Books in
downtown Seattle, decades ago.

There is no serendipity at Amazon.

~~~
brudgers
When I moved in 2006, I gave away my set of _Encyclopedia Britannica_ to a
neighbor. 1957 edition with the dedicated bookcase purchased at a yard sale
for $15 in 1989, just because 'Wow' and its own bookcase and some things don't
go out of date. There's no Kindle edition of the '57 Britannica and if there
was, it would not be $15 to me and free to my neighbor.

These days, my culled books go to a local charity's thrift shop or to
Habitat's ReStore or to my public library for its book sale or to someone I
know. Not the bitbucket.

~~~
WalterBright
They won't take encyclopedias. I've tried. (I have two sets.)

------
nxc18
There is a good point in this article about the perception of effort and how
that affects comprehension, rather than the medium.

I've met and worked with many people who think that just because it is being
read through a computer that they don't have to read it carefully.

As a so-called 'digital native' with an unapologetic love for text, I find it
extremely frustrating that people don't take online text seriously. Some
people even like to speed-read, racing through text faster than they can
recall the pronunciation of the words.

You might think you can speed read and still understand the content - most of
the speedreaders I know hold that belief quite dear - but you aren't getting
the whole story. A single missed word can profoundly alter the meaning of a
sentence. I've seen many conflicts and miscommunications caused by lazy
reading and misinterpreted messages.

If I took my time to write a clear, concise, meaningful
message/email/post/document/etc, please pay me the courtesy of truly reading
it.

/rant

~~~
david-given
> Some people even like to speed-read, racing through text faster than they
> can recall the pronunciation of the words.

That's totally normal! I don't think I know _anybody_ who doesn't read faster
than they can talk.

I agree with you about the problems involved speed reading, but... what you're
describing here isn't speed reading --- it's just reading quickly. Speed
reading's an entirely different discipline (and which is known not to work
well).

~~~
axlprose
> _and which is known not to work well_

This is commonly said about speed reading, but it seems to me like a bit of a
misunderstanding about what speed reading even is. Speed reading isn't about
trying to retain the same level of comprehension on a single pass through a
text as a normal speed pass through it. It's nothing more than an optimized
skimming technique if you only take one or two passes through a text. But the
idea is to leverage the time saved through 'speed reading', by putting that
extra time into additional passes later on, thus making it more of an
efficient spaced repetition[0] system than a reading technique. The idea being
that you build your comprehension up with each pass, until you surpass the
comprehension you would've had of it if you only took one normal speed pass
through it, and in the end still use up about the same amount of time or less
as a normal reading.

Continuing with the spaced repetition idea, speed reading also helps that
along more than normal reading by making the things you've read more difficult
to recall, which is good if you plan to review them again later to strengthen
the memories. The book "Make It Stick"[1] has a pretty good overview of
different scientifically proven learning techniques that are pretty
interesting, and a lot of them overlap with the effects of speed reading +
multiple passes.

Personally, since I'm dyslexic, I prefer applying this approach to audiobooks
and listening to them at 3-4x speed, then re-listening to ones I liked later,
all while taking notes as I go. And I have to say, that works out for me
pretty well. My biggest issue is keeping track of _which_ book I learned
_what_ from.

[0]
[https://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition](https://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition)

[1] [http://makeitstick.net](http://makeitstick.net)

------
bhewes
I read a lot of text on screen. One of my main enjoyments of HN is it is text
heavy so my screen space is not wasted with subpar graphics.

I also read in print I enjoy the tactical feel and the lack of a back light. I
also tend to buy beautiful physical books that stand out as objects on their
own.

PDFs, I only read now on an IPad given the high dpi.

If I have a point it is in my reading I switch back and forth so generously it
is hard to tell the difference.

------
vivekd
I find LED screens hard to read on for long periods of time, but I don't have
this problem with e-readers.

At this point, I think the attachment that people have to analog books is
purely emotional. There is no practical reason to have books over e-readers.

People mention things like the feel of the book, the feel of the paper in your
hands, etc. Well I don't particularly like the way paper feels, particularly
old paper when it starts to change color and get stiff and slightly misshapen.
But even if you do like that sort of thing, in the end that's not what you're
after, you don't read books for the feel of the paper or the smell or
whatever, you read books because you want a good story or good information.

Yes some nostalgia books might be good for paper format for collectors or
people who have preferences (like those people who like to vinyl instead of
MP3s , but for ever-day, practical reading, digital readers are better in
nearly every respect. They are cheaper, they have adjustable fonts, you can
make a backup copy of the book and store it in the cloud so you don't have to
worry about ever losing your book. You can adjust the font and font size. You
can tap twice on any word and instantly get the dictionary definition. If you
have a kobo you can save we articles on the kobo for later reading. It
automatically keeps your page for you. Bookshelves take up an enormous amount
of room, having that in the space of a small notebook is an advantage. It's
much more environmentally friendly. By any measure e-books are better.

The only mildly sensible detraction I've seen on here is the inability to show
off your bookshelf or share books, which frankly I don't care about. I don't
care about showing off to other people, that's not why I read, and I can share
books just fine without pulling it off a bookshelf and showing it.

~~~
kakarot
You're confusing your own motivations with the motivations of others.

Why do I read literarary works? For the information inside.

Why do I read physical books? I like all of the things you mentioned people
shouldn't care about. The look, the feel, the physical manifestation, and most
of all the smell of a stale book after a few decades. It's lovely.

Books fundamentally serve a different purpose for me.

Is this preference arbitrary? Yes. Is there anything at all wrong with it? No.
The only thing wrong with mass produced books is the carbon footprint. These
days we don't even need to cut trees for decent cellulose paper so the
argument of deforestation people like to use is only a matter of current
industry practices and not the book itself.

Instead of condemning the preferences of myself and others, why not try to
understand us?

~~~
vivekd
>Why do I read physical books? I like all of the things you mentioned people
shouldn't care about. The look, the feel, the physical manifestation, and most
of all the smell of a stale book after a few decades. It's lovely.

I doubt this is true for everyday reading. Because if that were true you would
just open up old books and sniff them and rub them in your hands from time to
time. And yet I have never once seen anyone do this. Lets face it, we read
books for the words not for the feel for the books.

People are just going back to "feel" based sentiments now to justify what they
see as a major change in a cherished hobby which they dislike. And while feel
based arguments for preserving books aren't completely without merit, they
only apply to a narrow type of book and a narrow type of reading (beautiful
classic books) and not to actual every day reading.

I understand the nice qualities in old classic books. I get the nice feeling
of opening up a really old book that has been around for a long time - but
that really is a limited scope sort of use that doesn't capture every day use
of books, and it's not really connected to the reading - it has more the value
that an antique or a collectible has.

I think the best example is two copies of Shakespeare I have. One is an old
classic version of Shakespeare in hard cover printed on high quality paper
with ink illustrations. The other is a college paperback copy of Hamlet with
torn covers and introduction pages. The prior might not be a good candidate
for replacement with an e-reader but the latter certainly would. But if your
goal was just to read Hamlet, both would be just as effective. This isn't to
say there isn't a place for the great feeling you get with the hardcover
beautiful Shakespeare book, just that the feeling isn't necessarily connected
to the actual reading of Hamlet.

~~~
soulbadguy
You are basicly doubling down on the same fallacies the previous post was
pointing to.

> I doubt this is true for everyday reading

For some of us books are not everyday reading...

> Because if that were true you would just open up old books and sniff them
> and rub them in your hands from time to time. And yet I have never once seen
> anyone do this. Lets face it, we read books for the words not for the feel
> for the books

Following the same line of thinking, since I never saw anyone eating raw salt
I should conclude that people don't really like salt ? You are trying to
reduce reading a book to sum of arbitrary components...

------
Sam_Harris
Huge obnoxious pop-up when I tried to view the page.

~~~
keithpeter
If that was the one advertising the $29 special offer one year print
subscription then I think they probably need the money.

I just subscribed to the _print_ edition because I like glossy magazines with
high resolution illustrations. I can take it in and show it around to students
and other teachers.

Because I'm in Europe, I got to pay $30 postage (always an issue) and had, as
always, to sign up through a registration process, select product and postage
and then finally nominate PayPal at the checkout.

The subscription is non-repeating, so a definite limit: I get 6 glossy
magazines for about £7 each.

