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Comment by Adutude | Hacker News Reader

Interesting tidbit, in the sentence in the article " To explore these patterns further, we conducted three studies that explored college students' ability to comprehend information on paper and from screens."

"Three studies" is linked to a single study, not three. The study is on the site tandfonline.com (Taylor and Francis), where you have to pay to read the study.

Also interesting is that Taylor and Francis, on their website taylorandfrancis.com, says "Taylor & Francis Group publishes books for all levels of academic study and professional development, across a wide range of subjects and disciplines."

So long story short, this is a study saying that books are better, that's on a site who's main business is publishing books. Not saying the study is inaccurate, but I find an article, about how books are better, on a book publishers site, somewhat suspect.

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I did an in depth review of the research for a Human Computer Interaction class in college a couple years back before the Taylor and Francis study and the research then generally agreed with the idea that reading a print book was the best for comprehension (I tried quickly searching for the paper to pull sources, but no luck). However that difference appeared to be mostly related to form factor and not necessarily from the screen itself. Studies that used tablets showed smaller gaps in performance than studies that used computers. Studies that used e-ink e-readers showed almost no difference in comprehension. I was not able to find a single study that compared more than 2 or 3 different devices using the same methodology. If I were to design a study I would want to see a full range of tests including print books, e-ink e-readers, tablets with full color screens, traditional computer monitors, and e-ink monitors. Hopefully then you could better isolate the cause of the lower comprehension.

My own hypothesis (I have a comp sci degree, so take this psychology explanation with a grain of salt) is that comprehension is more dependent on the person's approach to the technology rather than the technology itself. Books are single purpose devices. When you have a book in your hand your brain knows it is time to focus on reading. When you sit down at a computer, the brain doesn't know what to expect or to focus on. It is similar to other advice about training your brain to expect certain activities such as reserving your bedroom only for sleeping or to have a dedicated home office if you work remotely.

I find it personally important how fast the device is and how easy it is to use, if I can quickly look up things in the document and find my way back. If chapter references are clickable and so on.

I certainly agree with that. There are features available on each device that change their usability and that should be factored in when deciding what should be used in the classroom. However preferences for the different functionality isn't particularly interesting from a research perspective. It will vary too widely among users and use cases (e.g. novels have different feature demands than textbooks). The fact that reading comprehension varies between the devices is more counterintuitive and it isn't immediately clear why those differences exists. That is probably why most of the research on this topic focuses on comprehension.

I wonder how much the gap would be narrowed simply by being able to put general-purpose devices into an instructor-locked single-app mode.

I’d expect the conditioning to be subconscious. Doesn’t matter the computer is locked down. Your brain sees a computer, which triggers a multitasking, distraction-rich mode.

How did you test comprehension in the study? With a test on a screen, paper or verbally? If I recall correctly similar environments in test taking and learning have a big impact on your capacity to remember (and probably also on comprehension).

My hypothesis is that the difference is related to how memory works by associations and spatial cognition.

I read lots of research papers and books. I have tried to switch to e-readers several times, but it never works. I learn the subject slower and I remember much less of what I read from e-reader. I use computers and e-readers to skim or check some details, but never to thoroughly study.

If I read physical book or printed article and underline it, leave coffee stains on the paper etc. I'm working with actual physical object. When I achieve the paper in a map, I can often recall where the book is stored physically and even the coffee stains and notes in the paper.

I think physical book or paper works the same way as memory palace technique. You remember stuff by working with them physically better than in abstract. Physical library might be mirrored in our mind. Ancient augmented memory technology we did not know we have and might lose. E-reader or computer associates everything to the same object.

It's the same for me - I really enjoy ebooks for non-study material though.

I wonder if it will be the same for my daughter :)

ebooks are great for reading novels.

I'm unsure... E-readers are wonderfully convenient to store multiple novels, but my experience is the same as in your previous post, even for novels. I tend to read non-sequentially -- going backwards and forwards in novels, re-reading previous chapters, going back a bit to re-read a paragraph I liked -- and e-readers are simply not good for that. Printed books are way better. I tend to remember what I read in paper books better than ebooks, exactly what you described for academic papers!

I guess that reading novels non-sequentially is enough of a special case...

Is it? I don't mean "reading randomly, out of order" nor do I mean skipping to the end to read spoilers (though some people, puzzingly, do just that). I mean randomly reading parts I've already read. I assume a lot of people's reading habits are similar to mine.

I don't do that and have never heard of someone doing that. I have heard of people re-reading a chapter they just finished, because they enjoyed it so much or because they felt they missed something. I've heard of people opening a favorite novel to a random page, reading for a bit, then closing it.

The only non-sequential access I ever do in novels is for reference material, things like maps, character lists (e.g. Game of Thrones), or glossaries (e.g. Clockwork Orange). Footnotes on paper are sequential-ish, I read the Three Body Problem novels on a Kindle where you tap on a footnote number to get the text in a separate window and there's close or back button to return to the original page. I heard at least one David Foster Wallace novel had some insanely long footnotes that went on for multiple pages and maybe footnotes within footnotes, I don't know how that works on paper or an e-reader in terms of navigation.

Yea, I love using ebooks for light or SF novels. As well as journalist-y nonfiction (especially ones structured as the story of the writer learning that subject and consisting mostly of vignettes talking with experts). Basically anything I'll just blow through and never look at again.

I never use ebooks for most of what I like to read though. Or cookbooks!

Heh, I've had the same thought (https://noamswebsite.com/r/books/). We are physical beings after all; at the end of the day our nervous system evolved for the sole purpose of helping our bodies do stuff within a a physical world.

I hope soon with augmented reality I can get the best of both worlds and, for example, point at a word on my book and immediately hear the definition.

Personally my experiences have been the complete opposite. There are a number of reasons paper books are always going to be second to ebooks to me. The idea of lugging a book/s around. Hunting for a book at a shop or library when I'm feeling the itch to read it sooner rather than later. Flipping through pages whilst looking back up at a screen breaks my concentration. etc..

When the first gen Kindle was released I ordered it right away. It was one of the most liberating devices I've ever owned. I managed to read a ton of books that had been on my read-list for ages. This obviously has much more to do with having everything you want to read immediately available and also the discrete portability to do such.

Also when I would underline text in a book it was as if my brain shutoff. Subconsciously i'm thinking 'Okay I saved this part in the book'. When I'd go back my train of thought is gone and thus the highlight is out of context. So that bit of physicality returns zero for me personally.

This feels like you’re having a different conversation, there was no debate about portability or convenience.

Also, highlighting is one of the worst ways to try to learn:

http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/09/highlighting-is-a-waste-of-...

I apologize for the confusion. My response was half directed towards the post of Nabla9.

"If I read physical book or printed article and underline it, leave coffee stains on the paper etc. I'm working with actual physical object. When I achieve the paper in a map, I can often recall where the book is stored physically and even the coffee stains and notes in the paper."

Thus my response on highlighting.

So what is it about paper or e-books? The debate is between paper and lcd? I was thinking there is something more tangible that makes one more appealing than the other. No? Which is why I stated why I lean towards one more than the other. A practicality rather than a hidden nuance. Which I'm assuming is the real reason?

> When you sit down at a computer, the brain doesn't know what to expect or to focus on

but on the upside, there really is a lot more depth to using a computer. Hyperlinks alone are a timesaver already; simple dynamic applications like animation/diagramming, interactive text search or, in technical topics, whole virtual environments that text is merely companion too are a huge boon for engagement and neigh impossible in plaintext.

Maybe that's a curse in disguise. Too much choice, directions to branch off in causes dissonance. Paradox of choice.

I'd add that I also think there is a three dimensional cataloging of information that you get from using a thick textbook.

"Chapter 19" gets stored in your own memory in three dimensional space. Flipping backwards and forwards on topics can result in an unintentional mnemonic device.

Especially when you consider a typical introduction to of comp-sci textbook (for example) the foundational principles (input, output, variables, loops) are all organized at the FRONT of the book.

Things of increasing complexity are gated behind the foundations.

Now that's also probably just a window into how my 40 year old brain grew up. With textbooks etc... there's nothing to say that younger brains won't re-wire themselves to learn from a screen and find their own mnemonics - maybe it's left and right as opposed to forward and back.

First, on your notion of bias:

Taylor and Francis is owned by informa.

A trivial search for informa's annual report would reveal that academic publishing makes up 45.7% of their operating profit, and 50% of that comes from subscriptions, almost all of which are digital.

Further, most of their major initiatives are in digital, especially for journals which are most of their revenue.

Second, on your "three studies" objection - they're looking at three separate outcomes, as they mention in the article. It's common to lump the results of multiple highly related studies in a single paper.

Third, as noted by another commenter, nearly all peer-reviewed journal articles are going to be published by publishers who also have a stake in other aspect of academic publishing.

I highly doubt Informa is keeping TnF around as a charity cause. They need to keep doing what they do, sell books, to make corporate happy.

TnF claim to publish 1,500 new titles each year. Informa isn't just eating that entire cost.

Indeed. These studies need to be done by independent researchers multiple times and published in a number of independent venues in which the publishers (who clearly have reason to tamper) have no control over the content nor the peer review selection process (again, to be performed independently).

Journal publishers have very little control over the content or selection of peer reviewers. That's the editorial board.

https://www.elsevier.com/editors/editorial-boards

> Editorial board members are selected by the journal’s editor(s), with input from the publisher.

hrmn.

I'm saying in a practical sense, the publication of a single paper, and the choice of peer reviewers, is effectively not under the control of the publisher.

I mean yeah, technically, Al Gore had input on whether or not I worked at Apple, because he was on the Board of Directors. But practically?

The point is that it is not independent in there is a clear, direct path for coercion in arrangements such as that. Did Al Gore have a hand in hiring you at Apple? Probably not, no, but could they have? Could they have you fired or at least influence the board against renewing your contract if you did something they didn't like? I think the answer there is yes.

The idea that a publisher would threaten a major profit center (because doing something like this is a good way to kill a journal) over one paper that mostly just says what form the consumer wants to engage with their content in is absurd.

Hell, odds are they didn't even know about it until it went to print. If then. In Education alone T&F publishes 250+ journals. I almost guarantee you they have well less than one staff member per journal. The metrics they care about are "Are you publishing enough papers?", "Are you making money?" and "Are your publishing metrics going up?"

"Does a submitted paper suggest that our digital strategy might be less important than traditional print, and I want you to jeopardize the reputation of your journal for it" is fairly far-fetched, especially with no evidence besides "Publication was published by a publisher."

The structure for systemic corruption is there and the best argument you can make is for "one paper". Yes, I agree with you - but that's not what we're talking about at all.

I'm not suggesting it's a charity cause. I'm suggesting that there's no evidence that they're print-biased, given T&F is also a journal publisher, and the subscriptions vs. physical units breakdown is literally 50/50

Journal subscriptions aren't a replacement for textbooks. eBooks are. And the margins on eBooks are lower than print books.

It's in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, written by academics in the field, not by T&F itself, nor funded by them. While there are problems with the peer reviewed system, publisher interference with research results isn't typically one of them.

yes this: http://taylorandfrancis.com/books/

this is called conflict of interest. I would rather carry ipad air or like sized tablet anyday rather than 5kilos of books in my backpack.

...and of course each year they print a new version of each book with some of the content shuffled around ("improvements"), to force students to buy NEW books instead of re-using / buying second-hand.

Instead of testing a null hypothesis through statistical inference, a dubious approach to the scientific method for either a frequentist or Bayesian, how about an appeal to common sense experience?

Out of the scope of the study in question, but do you think a device attached to the world of social media, pornography and video gaming might be more distracting than a book containing focused information?

Closer to the study: even a Kindle offers the temptation of downloading another text.

Also, have you been into a public high school lately and seen just how distracting these devices are in actual use, especially as they are now relied upon in place of expensive textbooks and articles?

Finally, isn't it suspicious that an individual on a technology forum would defend technology? It's almost like your average technology worker has some kind of moral stake in their profession, wouldn't you say?

I have a friend who says something is "reasonable" when he can't think of a specific justification for it. I feel the same way about appeals to common sense. They rely entirely on the predisposition of the audience.

If you have some spare time I'd be happy to have a video chat conversation about the epistomological consequences of academic studies in soft sciences like psychology, sociology and economics and how the experiences of the target audience are always key to accepting knowledge.

I don't think my arguments are going to be very effective in the comment section of a web forum. (See Socrates discussing the written word with Phaedrus for the epistomological issues of discourse without active dialog.)

I'm not really looking to argue. I'm on vacation in Ecuador. For the sake of conversation, I think your final point in the post I originally responded to is largely similar to the idea that a textbook publisher is not an unbiased source regarding the utility of textbooks. I agree with that point, and with yours.

I also believe that the fundamental strength of empirical epistemology is that it liberates us to some degree from our expectations, instead saying "set up the method and do the legwork, and let the results tell you what is correct." I happen to like that methodology, for two reasons. First, empiricism allows a more open minded approach to misconceived problems. Second, if applied correctly, empiricism is the only consistently useful epistemology because it is acquired in the same practical manner as it is applied.

That said, I think academia has a very low bar in general for research that is politically well-oriented, but scientifically ill-constructed. I think the peer-review system is less of a check on BS than it should be, and that there is a lot of social pressure that prevents researchers from stepping out of certain boundaries. Nowhere is this more true than in the social sciences, where there is more room to fudge facts and findings, as well as to infer and opine. So in a sense I totally agree that the target audience is always key to accepting knowledge in academia.

However, knowledge and truth are not identical sets, and something can be proven true without being accepted into the corpus of knowledge. Conversely, some of the BS that gets bandied about as "knowledge" in academic circles is just untrue gibberish that helps people go to conferences or gain acceptance in a weird elitist circle of ivory tower pinheads.

And then you get stuff like a textbook company publishing research saying "Nah bro textbooks are way better. Buy more of them bro."

Thank you for the thoughtful response!

Empiricism as applied to theories of gravity is one thing. Empiricism through statistical inference is entirely different.

I can actually reproduce the expected results of the theories of gravity by measurements related to projectiles and celestial bodies. In this way I can directly experience their truths.

However, I cannot reproduce the results of the majority of psychologic, economic, and sociologic experiments for a number of reasons, and for the sake of brevity I'll just refer any readers to a couple of Wikipedia articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misunderstandings_of_p-values

Beyond these issues with methodology are the dissemination to and interpretation by the general public who will not have access to the studies themselves and will always and only be presented with summaries unless they happen to know someone with access to a digital or analog university library. This makes discussions about methodology moot as most people will not be able to examine the nature of the experiment.

Considering the general public's access to academic knowledge is restricted while their access to commercially produced knowledge is promoted and subsidized by advertising, we should be able to see the epistemic crisis in our contemporary age of information.

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