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Comment by moe | Hacker News Reader

It still baffles me that people want to read books on the iPad in first place.

Reading on a backlit screen is well known to tire your eyes very quickly, due to the low resolution and (afaik) because the eyes' Rhodopsin depletes faster while staring into a light source.

I have heard people arguing that we spend half our days in front of a computer-screen anyways, but that is a different kind of usage. During computer use the eye is mostly scanning and rarely reading chunks of text longer than a page at once. Book reading is a different story, as anyone who has tried to do that on a backlit screen can confirm.

Consequently this argument about (Book-)typography misses the point for me. If you want a good reading experience then get an e-ink device or stick with paper. Even the best font can only marginally reduce the inherent problems with staring a backlit screen for extended periods of time...

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Sir, I heartily recommend that you avoid making biological claims that you clearly understand only dimly.

In any event, I have read numerous books and publications on my led backlit monitor for my laptop and not experienced significant eyestrain. The amount of eyestrain I feel is roughly analogous to reading in similar environments.

Modern display technology has come a long way from the days of CRTs. I think this complaint is weak at best and unfounded at worst.

Relevant: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230333830457515...

The question is how big a hit on reading speed. It's possible to read on anything so that's not a useful criterion.

Personally e-ink is only a small difference off paperback and faster than a hard back. My last LCD was about an hour longer for a book but it had a smaller screen (and the big problem wrt the LCD was a backlight turning off).

Realistically it's things like: how do you turn a page; can you do it with either hand; is it easy to hold. That make more difference.

While I agree with the general statement that it isn't that easy, just providing anecdotal evidence doesn't really help a lot.

The problem with all that is that there are a multitudes of factor in play. Contrast, type size, surrounding light, age of the reader, frequency of breaks... A college student reading his textbook on his iPad or Laptop in a well-lit university is different from an insomniac septuagenarian reading "Eat, Pray, Love" in bed, with the light set low to avoid waking hubby.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/do-e-readers-cause-...

From your article: “First of all: doctors say that reading on a screen won’t cause any harm.”

I feel like the post originating this discussion was somewhat alarmist. It's definitely true that some conditions that ereaders (of varying types) present can cause fatigue faster than reading a printed page in a well-lit room.

And please don't take my statements as proof, because I'm not offering anything besides the null hypothesis: reading is reading and there isn't any special magic to screen reading that makes it an eyeblaster.

I'm certainly not going for the "staring at a light bulb" argument... I think in the end it's probably a rather minor difference, akin to bad paragraph typesetting, bad fonts or even ligatures and hyphenation. Certainly not roasted eyeball territory...

In the end, what people like will be more important. I remember reading some studies where font choice on readability was tested, and the font that tested best wasn't the preferred one. Probably the same for reading devices. Let's say you compare the Kindle and the iPad for high school use. And let's say independent tests made clear that reading comprehension for the Kindle is better. Then you still would have to consider whether the kids aren't much more likely to pick up the iPad in the first place. Reading slightly slower is better than not reading at all. (Well, never mind that choosing more interesting books would probably make a bigger impact. Friggin' Lord of the Flies...)

I read GEB on a LC display. Sure, there are trade offs — I think my reading speed is noticably slower — but my eyes just refuse to strain. I would take the advantage of having all my books in digital form over dead wood books any time. This is just a anecdote but I think there is a lesson here: the digital book reading experience doesn't have to be on par with old books in every way to win out. Being a bit worse in one respect might no matter in the long run.

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