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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)
Novelty, too I guess. Most people have used paper books their whole lives. I'd be interested to see the tests in 20 years of kids who have grown up with ebooks as their primary source of reading material and how they get on when they're handed a real book.
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).
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
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?
A logarithmic scale from zero to 30*pi then?
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.
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.
You've encountered seven point scales (often called Likert scales: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale ) in the past. [Please select the best answer]
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Somewhat disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Somewhat agree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
You can't? The only eInk device that I'm familiar with is my iLiad, which has a flip switch for turning the pages. If you flick it, you turn one page, if you hold it, you turn 5. Turning 30 is relatively easy. There's also a progress bar along the bottom, and you can just tap in the middle of it to jump a significant distance. It's not as fast as jumping to a specific page in a book, but it's pretty fast. The user interface on the iLiad is pretty poor, so I'd be surprised if it wasn't faster on other devices.
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I am a voracious reader. I've been using a program called Palm Reader on various Palm OS devices for 5 or 6 years, for nearly all my reading needs. I can read books on my PDA way faster than a paper book, probably because I'm so accustomed to it. The only thing it's not good for is heavily annotated books like War and Peace (which I am reading right now in paper form) with all the French-English translations in the footnotes.
Reading on a small hand-held device (currently a Palm 755p) is far superior most of the time. It provides its own illumination for night reading, it's smaller and lighter than a book, and I can store hundreds (or more) of books on it at once. The only people it would be bad for are those with poor eyesight.
As for where I get all my ebooks, that's a discussion for a different thread.