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Reading E-Books Takes Longer Than Reading Paper Books
Hugh Pickens writes "PC World reports on a study showing that reading from a printed book — versus an e-book on any of the three tested devices, an iPad, Kindle 2, and PC — was a faster experience to a significant degree. Readers measured on the iPad reported reading speeds, on average, of 6.2 percent slower than their print-reading counterparts, while readers on the Kindle 2 clocked in at 10.7 percent slower. Jacob Nielsen had each participant read a short story by Ernest Hemingway. Each participant was timed, then quizzed to determine their comprehension and understanding of what they just read. Nielsen also surveyed users' satisfaction levels after operating each device (or page). For user satisfaction, the iPad, Kindle, and book all scored relatively equally at 5.8, 5.7, and 5.6 on a one-to-seven ranking scale (seven representing the best experience). The PC, however, did not fare so well, getting a usability score of 3.6."
On the iPad, they had to keep checking their email.
Way to mention the results aren't actually statistically significant:
(Emph. mine)
Yep, it is true, if some paragraph is boring, you cannot so easy jump over 20-30 pages. And of course, you are distracted by all these buttons, user interface, how to hold the device, and many many other little things...
Maybe I'm just being obtuse here, but it wasn't clear to me if they read the same story on all of the platforms, or just had each person read the story once and the testers chose the platform for them.
This is pretty significant. If you're going to have me read the same 30 pages over and over again, I may slow down due to boredom, or I may skim the pages and the progression appears to have increased.
Books should be read carefully and slowly. What's the rush?
The e-books readers will never understand the precision offered by the keyboard-mouse combination. I find reading on the e-books without the keyboard and mouse to be like a cliff notes or graphic novel version.
Even if this is true (and I'm not sure it is), just the fact that I can have my Sony Reader with me at almost all times means that I get more reading time in than I would if lugging paper books around. And for the record, I still do read a fair number of paper books. The eReader supplements my paper book reading experience -- it didn't replace it, like so many people whom I know seem to believe happens (not surprisingly, those same people tend to view nearly everything around them in the same black-and-white terms).
I like to read on my handheld as much as real books :)
but there are times when my n900 outshines literally a real book - night time curled up in bed with the lights off.
liqbase
Not being frivolous, but as far as I can tell, the users were new to reading ebooks, but presumably not so with paper books. If you were to turn the study round, and test people who were familiar with ebooks but not with paper, you might get a very different result, especially on the general satisfaction. On the rare occasions when I read a paper book these days, I find it very irritating that I can't flip pages one-handed, larger books are actually hard to hold one-handed, I have to remember to place a bookmark and be careful not to lose it, because the damn thing doesn't automatically open back up to the last page I read, etc etc. Of course paper-book people are so used to these limitations, they don't actually notice them.
Oh no... it's the future.
I think this depends how you measure it. During my last vacations i have read about 20 books all stored in my ebook reader. If i would have taken the time to buy/fetch new books every time from a bookstore, i would have read (on average) much slower. Having an automated bookmark for every book also saved a lot of time. So, it depends on the way of measuring :-).... as usual.
CU, Martin
You should take these findings to heart and seriously consider not using e-readers.
News at 11.
Letting tech people (PC World, Apple, Kindle, et al) run tests like this to measure a tech-type property (speed, efficiency) is letting the tech people dictate the nature of the questions being asked about an "item", in this case 'are ebooks better than paper books". The outcome is irrelevant; the debate is being guided by one participent only. It's as if the hard sciences are telling the liberal arts what you are allowed to enjoy based on the only tests accepted: Their tests. The paper book people appear to be sitting on their haunches. They're probably just disorganised, but that has no affect on the non-technological benefits of paper books to a reader. Benefits that might be very personnel and quite unquantifiable.
By the way, I'm quite technological, not a 'phobe at all. But I'm smart enough to know that when tech companies say 'this is better' what they usually mean is 'empty my warehouse'.
Electronic books can be indexed and searched (on a PC or iPad you can also copy/paste sometimes (depends on the source). If I were to read a novel, I would prefer it to be a hard-copy. But since 99% of books I read are technical I prefer being able to search for related information and for research I prefer my PC (if nothing else I can always save screenshots in OneNote). Though I've never used a kindle, so I don't know if/how good they can search?
Why didn't Mr Usability rate them out of 10 or 5?
Scales most people are used to.
Sorry, but I think this is a useless study. Who the fuck gives a crap about reading speed, even controlling for comprehension? Is this that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa meets her erstwhile future husband?
No, it's not. Reminds me of a time in High School, I was reading a book, somebody starting bothering me about how long I was taking to turn the page. They'd timed it or something. I told them to fuck off, I wasn't in a race with anybody to finish the book, or the page, and I liked it for the leisure.
Yeah, I know, way to get ostracized in High school, but I'll be damned if it was even worth going anyway.
Have you ever typed a document in, carefully checked for the numerous errors that a spell checker will not catch only to have the errors JUMP out at you once they hit print, only to go back, fix the errors only to have them jump out at you on second print or even third? I have my guesses as to this phenomenon, but I've observed it in myself and others time and time again. Sometimes when I'm programming and cannot find the problem I'll highlight the area and suddenly see the errors, so my guess is simply having the medium in your hand in print or on a different colored background without glare as on a monitor can cause you to connect better with the reading material and find the errors or comprehend things faster.
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
It looks like they just handed an ereader to people who weren't necessarily familiar with them.
My reading speed when I first got my reader was about the same as paper, probably a little slower. As I got used to it, I read faster and faster. After 2 years, my reading speed and comprehension on an ereader is much higher than it ever was with paper.
Also take into account the fact that it's much easier to hold a reader than a paper book, and I don't ever have to hunt for a bookmark.
Bollocks
This study is, as studies in general tend to be, lacking in real detail and offers no real conclusion. At best, it serves to inspire debate about shit that doesn't need debating.
If you want to know how e-books compare to their print brethren, try an eReader or two out. Presumably, you have read countless paper-based writings, so you ought to know fairly quickly how well the format works for you.
Sheer speed isn't necessarily the "be-all" either.
Some reasons I have chosen the eReader format going forward:
- Unlike someone mentioned above, "how to hold it" is far less of an issue with an object of consistent size than with varying sizes of books/novels/mags. I read a lot in bed, laying on one side or the other. This generally means that, while one page will be a totally comfortable read, the opposite side requires a change of placement of book, head, or both. Other issues arise with the size of a book and amount of pages. The start/end of a large book can be unbalanced due to the distribution of the pages, thus being difficult to read.
- I find the same issue (how to hold) actually kept me from reading most books in public places (such as the metro, where you have limited space and time). NOw it is far easier to hold my ereader (sony 505) in one hand than most books, and I can flip the page with that same hand. This means I will actually break out a book on a 10 minute bus ride, where I did not bother to before.
- Portability: The fact that I can carry around a TONNE of books in one tiny form-factor means I can do far more reading when I am not at home.
- variable text size: This actually allows me to read faster as I dont find myself getting "lost" in large paragraphs of text, causing me to have to re-read parts of a book.
- exposure to new material: Let's face it, not everyone can get published, and no one want's to read a 100+ page pdf on their computer. I think the single largest benefit to these devices is that it allows you to read things you otherwise would not be able to. It lends exposure to the "little guy" (I have friends who have written whole novels, theses etc that I am now able to read).
There are more pros, and certainly some cons too, but the bottom line is that I am reading far MORE (and more varied) material now with my eReader than I ever was. Isn't that the most important thing.
It takes longer to turn a page on my Nook than it does to turn a real page. ENTIRE STUDY CONFIRMED!
eBooks are slower to read than a normal paper book?
Welcome to the wonderful world of [charge battery] computing. In this ebook you will discover the [charge battery] way computing has [charge battery] changed our lives in all sorts of [charge battery] gadgets.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Say, "Hugh Pickens..." Your link points to a PCMAG article, not PC World! Wondering if you can read from any format...
sorry, not about goatsee, move along now...
1- the LCD-based iPad, e-Ink Kindle, and paper book all scored basically the same. Would a Retina or PixelQi screen score even higher, or does that mean that existing screens are good enough, and further enhancements are superfluous ?
2- The study is lacking is several aspects: no variation in lighting, no information on the setting (bed ? desk ? john ? public transport ?), no information on retention either (I've read somewhere else than proofreading is much more accurate on paper than on-screen)
3- 17 min is a very short time, I often read for hours at a time. Eye fatigue sets in over time, not after a quarter of an hour.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
did you claim to say reading eBooks takes more time than reading real books? That a company who publishes real books and magazines like PC World would conduct a scientific study they claim is unbiased even if they are in the very business that eBooks threaten to compete with and possibly shut out. That they are not doing this to manipulate, scare, or use psychological warfare/operations to get more people to avoid the eBook market and buy more of their paper based books and magazines?
If you say so sir, but me and Mrs. Columbo seem to think that scientific studies done this way by biased sources, based on history always make biased claims and just McDonald's will do a scientific study showing their food is healthly and allows one to lose weight by eating a lot of it, and Microsoft claims Linux, a competitor to Windows has more security holes and bugs in it and that so does Firefox have more bugs and security flaws than Internet Explorer that this is starting to develop into some type of pattern.
But you know sir, figures can lie, but sometimes liars figure that even a peer reviewed scientific theory proven the best way it can will fool people even if it is biased and a sockpuppet scientist or someone else rubber stamped it for money and called it a peer review, but I digress if the public ever find that out, or figures out such things happen, no public relations you can do will be able to recover from this.
Oh yeah one more question sir, if eBooks are electronic books and digital information in the same way as web sites like say Slashdot are, and other studies show that one can read web pages (digital information) faster than printed newspapers, books, and magazines and these scientific studies were done by third party neutral scientific groups with no bias and nothing to gain, why is yours right and theirs is wrong?
Oh yeah sir, I hate to keep bothering you like this, but one more thing that bugs me, maybe you can shed some light on it, there was once a scientific theory and study that said boys were smarter than girls long ago. Because of this most of western civilization considers females to be weaker, less intelligent, and not to be treated with equal rights as males are. It was peer reviewed and proven. Then later as new theories and new technology and ideas came about they found out that girls learn education differently than boys do and that they had to change the way they teach so girls can learn and reach their potential, so something that was through to be true a long time ago and scientifically proven was later found to be flawed and wrong and in error. So education got changed to adapt to teaching girls to help them learn better and become smarter, even than most boys. That in some areas girls, women, and females in general are smarter than us males, and because of this type of stuff kept most women from entering the math and science areas which is why males had dominated them, but now due to this correction more women are getting into Math and Science areas and more women are attending colleges than men now. They didn't do the research to see how education worked that allowed boys and girls to learn and see if it was a factor. I believe using my own powers of logic deduction and detective mode, that your study used people not as smart as most on the Internet who use eBooks and thus took longer to read because they weren't computer savvy or technical enough to figure out how to use an eBook reader properly as most Slashdotters that could be used in such research may be used to find out they read eBooks faster than real books because they understand how tech works and electronic devices being the geek geniuses that we are, instead of the average person who cannot figure out what the difference between "save" and "save as" and choose RTF or Word 2002/2003 format for Office 2007/2010 to share documents with older versions of MS-Office and non-Windows machines that cannot read such files.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I don't know about others, but reading e-books on LCD screens is much faster for me since there's no pause in having to flip the page, just touch/press and go. I'm much slower when reading on the Kindle since the page refresh takes so long and I literally have to wait for the next page to come up. I really like the Kindle's e-paper display but the page refresh, the color inversion, and waiting drove me nuts.
I don't quite understand why the Kindle needs to invert to black and back when flipping pages but the web page can scroll and update without inverting. It would have been really nice if there was an option to flip pages without the color inversion.
Anyway, my favorite reading device right now is the iPod touch since it's easy to hold in one hand and "flip" with my thumb. I can read really fast and I've already read hundreds of books with it. It's not so good for technical reference though, probably an iPad...
I'm just wondering if these have been corrected for page flip times. That might account for the apparent slower read time...
...but I can carry hundreds of eBooks, multiple Bible versions, dictionaries, and the entire text dump of Wikipedia (Wiki2Touch), and still have room on my iPod Touch to carry music and videos. Yes, paper absolutely has its merits, but the convenience of sheer volume of a portable eReader often outweighs those merits.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Did they also measure and compensate for the average intelligence of the iPad owners?
The result? A 24-user study showed that reading from a printed book—versus an e-book on any of the three tested devices—was a faster experience to a significant degree.
The user study group is too small to be statistically significant. It can't possibly "show", "demonstrate", much less "prove" what TFA claims it does. At best, the article should read that findings of this user-study group suggest that reading from a printed book versus an e-book might be a faster experience under certain conditions... further research is needed.
But then again, it's PCMag for Xenu's sake.
Having said that, from my own experience using a Kindle 2 for both technical and leisure books, a printed book is a much faster read for me. I stopped buying e-books because of this. Any other new purchases have been in the form of old/used printed books (much cheaper and much more efficient for reading.)
I can only conjecture that this is because of ergonomics and screen size. I can see much more text at once in a printed book than with a Kindle 2. I can scan for key phrases before immersing myself in a page faster. I can backtrack pages faster (to reinforce what I've read so far.) Flipping through physical pages seem faster and more efficient than scrolling through screens (which is also why reading from a book is more efficient than reading from a scroll or concertina-styled folded document.). I can bend the tip of an arbitrary page (for bookmarking) and go back to it faster than trying to bookmark and navigate to it in a Kindle (can't speculate about the iPad, though.).
Unless there is a breakthrough in HCI, reading from a physical book will most likely be more efficient than using the e-reading technology we have today.
I have the PRS-600 and I like it, but I do find that I spend more time than I'd like shifting it around to get glare off the screen.
Additionally some of the books I've downloaded from Project Gutenberg are formatted strangely, and have carriage returns part way through lines. (Commercial ebooks are fine so far.)
Both issues tend to slow down my reading experience.
I also wouldn't recommend the PRS-600 for reading PDF based ebooks. The text reflow is bearable but if there are images or scripting it murders the document.
But it's a nice portable solution for carrying your favorite literature around.
I saw no mention in the study on verifying the accuracy and quality of the ebook version. I myself have some of Hemingway's work on my Kindle and was frustrated at how poorly they were converted to ebook format.
I've taken note many times how I tend to chew through books a lot faster on my Kindle than I do with dead tree books. Except those books where I find myself stumbling on misspellings, typos, etc... sometimes to the point where it was obvious an entire word was misinterpreted when going through it's OCR process. When I stumble upon a book as poor as that, my reading speed slows to a crawl.
I would've had 1st post but I was reading this on my e-book reader.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
E-Books Read YOU!
If I'm looking at reading fiction, like a short story by Hemingway, how fast I can get through it isn't of interest to me. Speed of use becomes a factor if I am checking a reference manual, in which case full text searching is sure a lot easier than relying on an index or table of contents.
There are a lot of reasons I would consider an iPad, Kindle, or some other electronic reader (I use my iPod Touch to read books now) as an alternative to print and speed of completion isn't one of those considerations. I think this is really an oversimplified measure of "best", especially if one is trying to rate overall "usability" which this test proposes to assess.
But a study with 24 users holds little statistical relevance, it's simply too small a sample. He did the same thing with an usability report on the iPad, where he'd tested it with a whooping 6 or so subjects.
:)
The results get the headlines and most people don't bother in reading the report so it gets far more credibility than it deserves.
Out of the people I studied back in Uni this guy is by far the laziest
If you are reading an e-book and it has Endnotes instead of Footnotes, than man, you got a problem...
...because I know you can't read very fast on your PC.
I own a ereader (now broken) and I read a lot. I did notice that the fact that you have less surface and that turning page takes more time make me read slower. I am waiting for the Entourage Edge in Europe to try with a bigger screen.
I didn't measure the difference in speed but I would say that I did go from 100 p/h to 80. But it's really an estimate. If you read faster it is an handicap.
I would say that when you are looking for a page in a reference book it can be quite fast because you remember where the page is. But I hope that the evolution of interfaces will make a good experience.
"Use cases are fairy tales..." I. S. 2005
So they tested a bunch of people intimately familiar with printed books, and found that they had a slight disability with a format they'd not used before.
As long was we're throwing around anecdotal bullshit, I'll note that I read a lot faster and more frequently with my Reader.
small sampling, short stories.
how about something useful like long stories(full novel) with a large sampling group. That would be a real study. Average WPM, the ability to read on the device for more than 20 minutes without eye strain... This "study" was no more than a marketing survey that many advertising firms do. (you know just before pushing a product no matter the results)
Christ, they were reading Hemingway? I'd like to see the results of actually having "read" the story, electronic device or no. Did you ever try reading The Old Man and the Sea in high school? Ten fucking pages describing the crest of a wave. I guarantee you 50% of the pages in the survey were skimmed at best.
This test is only on readability of a single book (quite validly, and they pretend nothing else). Being able to access and/or transport a huge list of books easily on digital media is also good, not to mention being able to access the net for other reasons, and all without carrying around a separate device. Given that I like to carry a laptop, and that its screen makes it HANDS FREE on a table, or at night on my doona (mouse under doona!) I will stay with the laptop.
I have a pretty good 24" lcd (a dell 2407wfp), which is big enough that I can put it about a metre away (or more) and still read pdf files (and html, which conveniently wraps when zoomed). It means i can read without glasses, so I can have tv in the background.
From personal experience, it does take me a lot less time to read a proper book. I have a hard time reading ebooks. For some reason, it's hard to focus vs. reading a hard copy of a book.
So is speed the most important factor? Let's see who can carry the most books.
I'm betting the short story was printed on a normal paperback. Paperbacks are significantly narrower in width, thus allowing for easier scanning by the eyes as the text continues from one line to the next. It is always harder to keep track of where the next line is when a page or screen is wider. That is why the ebooks take longer to read - because the eyes take a little longer to find the next line.
I wonder if the study took into account the dictionary feature. It takes me longer to read using my iPad because when i come across a word i am unsure of i use the dictionary feature to look it up. So:
1. Did they allow or pay attention to when that feature was used?
2. Did they give a dictionary to the ones who were reading an actual book?
With the first the study could be flawed because someone might look up a word they otherwise wouldn't have. With the second, well obviously the built in dictionary is much faster.
I haven't manage to finish a single ebook in ANY format, talk about coincidence! Half-price Books here in town has a better deal on most titles, too.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
I am using an astak reader and I read faster on it- why? because I don't lose my place as often when someone is trying to talk to me or other such interruptions- so I end up not reading the same page multiple times like I do with a paper book
Does it really matter how fast/slow someone reads on a ebook reader? Shouldn't it matter more how MUCH MORE we read with them? I have a JetBook http://www.jetbook.net/
and I read more now for the simple reason that I can take my reader anywhere with me, and it's not a big clunky 1000 page book that I can't fit into my bag.
My ebook reader is one of my favorite electronic gadgets that I've purchased lately. It's fantastic!
Mainly because I can read the same book on multiple devices. I normally read a paper book at home, go off and do other stuff, and don't get back to it until I get back home.
I might start an ebook on my iPad, read on my iPhone where I left off, and when I get back home to the iPad, I'm at least a chapter ahead of where I was that morning.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself.