According to a study by France-based Miratech using eye-tracking technology, reading a newspaper helps the brain assimilate and memorize better than reading content over an IPad. More at Miratech.fr. (French|English online translation) (Note: many studies have also proved that reading content on written media leads to significantly better comprehension of concepts and rationalization than watching the same content portrayed on a visual medium, such as a TV news broadcast.)
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Concerning the iPad vs newspaper: what was the age of the participants, comparing reading something that is considered a standard during the whole life of a 40 year old person and the iPad (another tech toy) can contribute to how serious we consider the medium.
I know that people at the age of my parents consider newspapers to be official, serious, un-biased and standard, they disregard information collected through a monitor, even if it is proven after the fact that the news was accurate and that newspapers, misrepresented, mislead and were late in discovering the news.
This is like explaining evolution to a person who has grown up being a creationist, they can’t just overcome their “programming”, they will still consider the iPad information less official, thus less important, thus automatically in the area of the brain for trash.
Come back to me in 30 years when it will be the other way round.
Concerning comparison of TV and printed media:
Well it might have something to do with the fact that reading needs more focus than watching. The idea is not to replace reading, but to complement it through video and audio, at least at school, it will make a multi-sense experience with text, video and narration even music playing a role in memorizing and understanding what is being said.
Of course I could also argument that it depends on how you show something on TV. Comparing a fairly stable presentation form as text to a highly variable presentation medium as TV is a bit off. A boring writer will have the same effect as poorly focused or boring video.
I’m fairly confident I remember a lot of scenes of my favorite TV shows by heart, even years after, couldn’t say the same about books I read, although as is obvious there books that do that too. It’s all down to what interests people and what is engaging. It’s not a VS, but a “how can I make things better”, damn this world and it’s VS mentality.
Hi Kostas. Great comments and arguments, this is actually one of my favorite subjects.
Re the study: it’s true, it does not mention the age of participants, but it says they were all Ipad-savvy, so I don’t think that there is a concern in that respect. I’d rather think it *could* be attributable to the current quality of screens, which do not come close to newspapers. But they sure will in the future. I’m of course speculating here, it’d be good to have more details.
Re comparing TV and printed media: form does determine function. Printed media allows for intellectual abstractions that visual media does not. And there have been strong arguments showing that the prevalent media of a society at a certain time determines how that society “thinks”. The printed media shapes public discourse in a certain way, the link between the invention of the printing press and the spread of science and rational thought on the 15th century onwards is clear. The visual medium erodes all this, and its consequences are not to be underestimated. Both for society as well as for politics and the quality of democracy.
I recommend checking out books on media studies and the sociology of media. Especially Neil Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
A final note, the visual medium has of course huge possibilities, one just has to be aware of its cons, and like you said, make the best of visual and printed media by complementing their possibilities. That’s what we aim at at Max Underground, and it’s a conscious and studied decision. 🙂
Hi Pablo,
what I mean by age is not about their tech knowledge, but the internal connections made in their brain years ago:
newspaper – read by dad in the morning, has authority and similar.
This is something that we will take years to overcome as it is obvious that although newspapers get the news last and have lag, we still want to see it from a “credible” source, just because of the authority connection made at an early age, which has been reinforced through the years.
This crucial connection can’t be overcome by being tech savvy, it’s just part of our current programming. Once e-paper becomes widespread enough or iPad devices durable enough for kids we will see this to fade as the transition is still in it’s very early ages.
Then news read on a screen will have the same value internally and we – well our grand-children – will value it the same and thus store in the same area as the important stuff. It’s kind of like: games are for children, but some who have grown up playing them know there is much more in these games.
People still buy encyclopedias for god’s sake…and the mistakes we have all found in books are never treated as misinformation or at least in the same way a mistake is treated if found on the internet.
The connection has been made, anything short of behavior modification can only do so much as with so many other preconceived ideas we have for the world and that’s why studies will show biased results when comparing the old to the new.
Hi Kostas. Good points. I take it you don’t have much faith in human nature being able to change prejudices and preconceptions. 🙂
It’s difficult to determine how much bias there might be in that respect because the study does not mention the age distribution of the sampled group, but it’s certainly possible.
I would add another potential factor. There is a notable difference in the experience of watching a film in a movie theater vs. watching it on a screen at home. One of the factors is the way in which each of these places prepares us for the viewing experience, including the absolute concentration one has in the theater (if people don’t talk too much) and not having a remote control at hand.
The possibilities brought by the Ipad and other tech devices and our awareness that many other options are just a click away may be impairing our ability to focus completely on what is being read. A bit related to the “Wired for Distraction” article The New York Times ran a few days ago.